All The Grits: Spicy Creole Sauce

I'll admit that I'm a little obsessed with Southern cooking; I have an ample collection of Southern-themed cookbooks, from the original Lee Brothers one that kicked this off, to ones that we've picked up on various trips (cookbooks make excellent souvenirs, btw). In the pandemic days, we received an inordinate amount of quick grits from my neighbor and while they're not as tasty as the real thing, they certainly enabled my desire to serve grits next to everything. 

During last year's trip to Charleston, I visited the local market before the once-in-a-century ice storm hit and purchased a large bag of grits - the real deal, according to the locals who felt the need to comment on my purchases (the grits and a cookbook titled "100 Ways to Cook Grits"). This amused the TSA agent at the airport (once we finally managed to escape the city), since he'd seen at least 3 other people from the same conference loading up their carry-ons with the same grits and the same bags of excellent coffee beans from the conference swag bags. 

No, no, NO! Use the good ones. 

I adore shrimp and grits and make a point of ordering it every time I'm far south enough to make it authentic. We have an excellent recipe for it as well, but past experience has resulted in very many dirty dishes and a grumbly tummy, because the (admittedly stellar) sauce takes forever to cook. David found the following substitute somewhere in his internet travels and it's become a weeknight staple. We even got ambitious and made an extra-large batch recently so we'd have some to freeze, which certainly came in handy one lazy Thursday night. We typically serve it with pork tenderloin and (of course) grits, but it's also very good on shrimp and I'm sure it would be equally tasty on chicken. Or you could skip the meat altogether and just ladle it over a big bowl of hot grits, and that would be just fine as well. 

All the Grits: Spicy Creole Sauce 

1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp kosher salt 
6 cloves garlic, minced 
2 roasted red peppers 
1 small can tomato paste
2 cans diced tomatoes (the fire-roasted ones, if you can find them)
2 cups beef stock
1 cup red wine 

In a large pan, heat 2 tablespoons of fat (oil, oil-and-butter, or oil-butter-and-bacon-fat, which is what you know you really want to use). Saute the onion, green pepper, celery, thyme, and salt for 8-10 minutes or until softened. 

Add the garlic and roasted red pepper and cook another 2 minutes. Add in the tomato paste and tomatoes, stirring well, and cook for another 5 minutes. 

Add the wine and beef broth. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 25 minutes. This will keep well on very low heat if you haven't nailed the timing of the meat and grits yet. This recipe makes about twice as much as you need, so freeze the extra for your own lazy Thursday night. 

BONUS: Creole Spice Blend (use as a meat rub) 

1 3/4 Tbsp celery salt 
1/2 tsp celery seed
1 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp dehydrated garlic flakes 
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes 
1/2 tsp allspice 

Mix together and store in an airtight container. 

Cookbook Time Machine: Chicken with Soy Sauce and Lemon

It's always fun to go back to cookbooks I've had for a while but not used lately to see what we used to cook and what we liked. This is where my habit of writing in my cookbooks comes in handy, since I would never remember all the things we've tried. I can't always remember what I had for dinner yesterday, much less 8 years ago. Note that it's also fun to go back to a blog you haven't touched in A YEAR (seriously, how the hell did that happen?!) to see what we used to cook and what we liked. 

My well-loved copy of How to Cook Everything is literally falling apart. The binding has broken, large sections are no longer glued to the cover and risk falling out, and there are some individual pages that are simply free agents at this point. Nevertheless, it's one of my favorites and I have no intention of replacing it anytime soon. I just have to be a little more careful when I use it and avoid dropping it. We can page through and see a history of our kitchen adventures; many of our favorites have grease- and water-stained pages and copious notes in the margins. If I replaced it, I'd have to go through every page and re-create my notes - it's far easier to be a little gingerly as we use the one we have. 

This is a recipe I don't even vaguely remembering trying in the past - the title doesn't make it sound very appealing, to be honest. The main thing that recommended it this week is that it's fast and easy, which is always something I'm looking for on a weeknight when nobody actually wants to cook, and it had a big star next to the title. We clearly liked it at some point. 

It uses chicken thighs, which are great because they cook quickly and are almost impossible to dry out, even if somebody turns off the timer and you end up cooking them for quite a bit longer than planned. As stated in the original recipe, this recipe makes a good amount of a light, tangy sauce that goes well over plain white rice - clearly a bonus, as we are a huge rice-eating household. 

Chicken with Soy Sauce and Lemon

1 Tbsp neutral oil
2 pounds chicken thighs or cut-up chicken parts; I use boneless skinless since John hates eating meat off the bone 
1 tsp minced garlic 
1 Tbsp lemon zest 
1/4 tsp cayenne 
2 Tbsp soy sauce 
1 tsp sugar 
1/3 cup water 
Juice of 1 lemon 

Heat the oil in a frying pan large enough to hold all the chicken in one layer, then brown the chicken on both sides. When it's browned, remove the chicken and all but one tablespoon of the fat from the pan. If you're using boneless skinless thighs, you may not need to remove any fat. 

Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic, stirring for a minute or two until it's softened. If you're cheating and using jarred garlic paste, this step takes about 30 seconds. Add everything except the lemon juice. Return the chicken to the pan, turning each piece once or twice in the liquid. 

Cover, turn the heat to medium-low, and simmer, turning once or twice, until the chicken is done. For boneless skinless thighs, this takes 15-20 minutes; bone-in thighs take about 20-25 minutes, and cut-up chicken parts about 30 minutes. 

Stir in the lemon juice and serve. 

Duck season? Rabbit season? It's Soup season!

Fall is my favorite season. In spite of my disdain of pumpkin spice everything (except Pumpkin Spice Oreos, which are amazing), I love it when mid-September rolls around and we start to get that little nip in the air every evening. Granted, I'm still wearing flip-flops and I'm resisting grabbing a jacket in the morning, but I know that sweater/flannel/wool sock season is almost upon us. I love my fall clothes (I love them less in the winter even though they're the exact same clothes). 

Fall, of course, signals the beginning of Soup Season. While soup is arguably a year-round food, and there are plenty of cold soups to prove this, there's nothing that says "home" like a pot of hot soup simmering on the stove when you come in from a hard day's raking. For a couple of highly organized years, I would make a large pot of soup every Sunday afternoon and we would whittle away at it all week long; the house smelled amazing even before we started cooking dinner, and I felt incredibly virtuous. While I haven't been that motivated in a while, I do like a good soup dinner. 

This soup checks all the boxes. It's fast enough to make on a weeknight - no long simmering required. It's hearty enough to fill you up so you don't feel like you're starving your teenage son or forcing him to scrounge for leftovers. It's a small batch so you won't be eating it so long that you get tired of it. And most of the cooking is done in the microwave, which means that cleanup is pretty minimal. I was so happy to *not* have to clean up bacon grease. 

As with all soups, you can scale it up infinitely, limited only by the size of your pot, though this one won't freeze well because of the milk. It does end up being pretty thick but you can always add a little more milk or broth; personally I liked that it spooned up almost like scooping out the inside of a baked potato. 

This recipe comes from Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2011. Man, do I ever miss that magazine. 

It's Soup Season Loaded Baked Potato Soup

 

4 6-oz red potatoes 
2 tsp olive oil 
1/2 cup chopped onion 
1 1/2 cups chicken broth 
3 Tbsp GF flour mix or half-and-half mix of rice flour and cornstarch 
2 cups milk, divided 
1/4 cup sour cream 
salt and pepper 
3 slices bacon 
1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese 
4 thinly sliced green onions 

Pierce the potatoes with a fork and microwave on high for 13 minutes or until tender. Cut in half and cool slightly. 

While the potatoes cook, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and saute 3 minutes. Add the broth. Combine the flour with 1/2 cup milk, then add it and the remaining milk to the pan. Bring to a boil, stirring often, and cook 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream, salt, and pepper. 

Put the bacon on a paper towel-covered plate, cover with another paper towel, and microwave on high for 4 minutes. Chop the bacon. 

Scrape off the potato skins and coarsely mash the potatoes into the soup. Serve with the cheese, bacon, and green onions.

Happy Cinco de Mayo: Mexican Jambalaya

It's Cinco de Mayo, which is generally a day for people to eat too many tacos and drink too many margaritas regardless of any Mexican heritage, in much the same way that St Patrick's Day is an excuse to drink to much beer and raise your blood pressure eating corned beef, regardless of whether you're actually Irish. This year it was also the day of Cinco de Mile, a 5-K race sponsored by a local sorority chapter to raise money for mental health awareness and programs in the city. It's a cause near and dear to my heart and I'm trying to form healthier habits, so I signed up with a friend in spite of being an avowed hater of running. My couch-to-5K program was going well until a minor ankle injury and then my running partner ruptured a tendon, so we decided that a brisk walk was the closest we were going to get and went to the race anyway. It was a lovely day for it and park we walked around was really nice; the pre-race Zumba was fun (to watch); and a good time was had by all, in spite of the fact that we took long enough that they disassembled the tent and packed up before we were quite finished. I'm not sure that I'll sign up for another event this year - really, I don't like running - but it was a great way to kick start some healthier habits and get into a walking routine. 

We're having tacos tonight (coincidentally, because I'm not really that organized) but I'd be remiss if I didn't share one of our favorite new recipes in honor of the holiday: Mexican Jambalaya. I'm not crazy about the name of this one - really, the only thing it has in common with actual jambalaya is the presence of sausage - but we haven't thought of anything better to call it. It's got the vibe of open-the-cans-and-call-it-Mexican-food cooking that I absolutely can't get behind, but really, I blame the name. It calls for actual chopped veg and actual spices and no more actual cans that plenty of other dishes we make, so I'm not sure why I'm being a snob about it. The end result is undeniably delicious. 

The recipe makes a ludicrous amount of food, which means that we actually end up with leftovers for lunch even when John is at the dinner table with us, and it's ready if not much more than half an hour. We've made some modifications to it based on what we can find at our local Aldi/GFS, as I'm not making a separate trip to find smoked Basque chorizo somewhere. I'm sure it's even better as written, but our substitute version has done just fine for us; it's become something of a regular in our kitchen. 

As with so many of the other recipes David finds online, I have no idea whatsoever where this came from. I'd be happy to attribute it to the original author if only I knew who they were. 

Mexican Jambalaya

4 1/2 oz Mexican chorizo 
12 oz smoked Basque chorizo, chopped
6 oz smoked Andouille sausage, chopped

OR 

1/2 package of the pre-cooked Black Forest sausage you buy at GFS that looks like kielbasa but isn't, chopped
2 cups chopped, cooked leftover chicken

Which way you go with the meat really depends on what your local grocery store stocks. By all means, find the sausages if you can and then pleeeeeease tell me how it turns out because I bet it's fantastic. 

1 yellow or white onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped 
2 cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes (regular diced if you can't find the fire-roasted)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ancho chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp kosher salt 
2 cups chicken broth
1 roasted, peeled, and chopped Anaheim or jalapeno chile (or sub a can of diced roasted green chiles, if the fresh produce section of your store is lacking)
1 15-oz can pinto beans 

If you're using the Mexican chorizo, cook it in a large stock pot, crumbling it as you go, then add the onion. If you're using our cheater ingredients, start by cooking your onion in a little canola oil for about 3 minutes. 

Stir in the celery and bell pepper and cook another 5 minutes or so. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil, then simmer and cook 25 minutes. Serve over white rice. 

If Minestrone and Ratatouille Had a Baby, It Would Be This: Italian Vegetable Stew

My out-of-control cookbook shelf(s) contains at least 9 vegetarian cookbooks, not including all of Anna's, because I'm avowed meat eater who aspires to be healthier. Most of the vegetarian recipes I've come across feel like entirely too much work for a weeknight, as they often: 

• include multiple recipes in the actual recipe in an effort to make something look easier than it actually is, (I'm looking at you, "Tofu with Broccoli and Spicy Peanut Sauce"), or 
• leave me hungry afterwards (I'm looking at you, "Tofu with Broccoli and Spicy Peanut Sauce"), or
• want me to substitute a fake meat for actual meat, which violates House Rule #1: No food pretending to be other food. This rules out a lot of tofu recipes for us (veggie crumbles generally contain gluten so they're right out anyway). 

If your experience has been different, please send me your recipes and I'll be delighted to try them. 

House Rule #1 has helped us avoid a lot of sadness in our gluten-free existence, as we're rarely tempted by such "treats" as frozen gluten-free doughnuts (which will never measure up to the real thing and just leave us noticing the difference). The solution to this - in both vegetarian and gluten-free cooking - has been finding ethnic recipes that don't want the offending ingredient in the first place. Naturally this leads us to Asia and the Middle East quite often. 

This baby looks nothing like minestrone or ratatouille

On occasion, however, we land solidly in Europe, as with this Italian dish that tastes like what would happen if minestrone and ratatouille had a baby. There are a fair number of steps in this recipe but nothing is actually difficult or time-consuming; this is something you can easily accomplish on a weeknight. And since the colder weather doesn't seem to be finished with us quite yet, it would also be lovely on a gloomy, rainy, cold day like today. 

Adapted very slightly from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen, my favorite obsessive people in the whole world. They will cook every possible variation of a dish so you don't have to (see any given cookie recipe if you don't believe me) and their food is invariably foolproof and delicious. 

Ciambotta (Italian Vegetable Stew)

PESTO

1/3 cup fresh basil
1/3 cup fresh oregano (or a tablespoon dried, if you can't find fresh oregano at 3 grocery stores) 
6 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes 

STEW

1 eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces 
salt
1/4 cup olive oil 
1 large onion, chopped
1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces 
2 Tbsp tomato paste
2 1/4 cups water 
1 28-oz can stewed tomatoes 
2 zucchini, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch pieces 
2 bell peppers, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 
1 cup shredded fresh basil (optional but probably delicious) 

Toss the eggplant with 1 1/2 tsp salt. Place it on a large plate covered with paper towels or coffee filters and microwave 8-12 minutes or until it's slightly shriveled, tossing halfway through.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a Dutch oven. Add the eggplant, onion, and potatoes and cook until the eggplant is slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Push the vegetables to the  side of the pot and add 1 tablespoon oil plus the tomato paste and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Allegedly this will form a brown crust on the bottom of the pot but it didn't for me; if it works for you, that's great. You'll deglaze the pan in the next step. 

Stir in 2 cups water and the tomatoes and scape up any brown bits. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until the eggplant is completely broken down, about 25 minutes. 

Heat the remaining tablespoon oil in a skillet. Add the zucchini, bell peppers, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook until the vegetables start to soften, about 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile, put all the pesto into a food processor and process until it's well-blended. If you're using the dried oregano, stir it in after you've processed everything. 

Push the vegetables to the side of skillet and add the pesto. Cook and stir about 1 minute. Stir the pesto into the vegetables. Put the mixture into a bowl (if you use the same one you used for tossing the eggplant with the salt, it's one less bowl to wash). 

Off heat, add the rest of the water to the skillet and scape up the browned bits, if any. 

Stir the zucchini mixture and water into the Dutch oven. Cover and let stand 20 minutes so the flavors blend. Stir in the rest of the basil, if using, then salt to taste and serve. 

Cookbook Challenge #17: Ethiopian Split Peas

Thanks, Wikipedia! 

If you've ever had the good fortune to have dinner at the Blue Nile, you're probably already familiar with this dish. Dining there is a fun experience: your group sits around a big woven basket called a mesob and shares portions served on injera, a spongy type of flatbread that you tear off and use to eat your food - no forks anywhere in sight. When I mentioned the restaurant, my African friend made a face and directed me to a completely different one; we tried it, but the experience of eating this delicious food off plates was simply not the same. Also, my palate isn't nearly refined enough to be able to tell the difference between a restaurant that is "the best" and another that is merely excellent. 

Properly this is called yekik alich'a, but I have no idea how to pronounce this and don't want to mangle it: Ethiopian split peas it is. This recipe comes from Exotic Ethiopian Cooking, purchased as a birthday gift for David along with a promise to make a meal from it, after we discovered that some Ethiopian restaurants use wheat flour along with the teff in the injera. (We've since discovered that we can get injera made with teff alone, but we need to give a couple of days' notice in order for them to properly ferment the dough, a restriction that doesn't necessarily fit in with our haphazard scheduling these days.) This cookbook is distinctive in that it appears to have not one single recipe for a vegetable, only meat and legumes and bread. Also, please don't tell me that a split pea is a vegetable; while I realize this is technically true, they behave more like lentils and I'm going to persist in thinking of them this way.

I've been meaning to cook from this book for ages even though I find it a bit intimidating; there are assumptions being made here that I'm not familiar with and I'm not sure how to feel about the spice levels. Nevertheless I persisted. Sunday's dinner was yesiga t'ibs (meat cooked with spices and red pepper), which I've made previously with venison, and these split peas. I was glad that I did some adjusting as we went, as the meat recipe called for a full cup of berbere, a cayenne pepper-based spice mixture that blew our hair back from our faces even when we cut the amount in half. Variations of the split peas call for stirring in some berbere at the end, which I'm sure is delicious as well, but we needed something to cut through the spiciness of the meat. For which I used half the spices. Half. We're such cowards.  

The recipe as written freaked me out a little, so I did some quick Googling and adjusted the recipe a bit based on what I learned, namely that using half the oil was completely fine as there are other versions that call for mere tablespoons. Apparently you can also make this with butter, which I imagine would make for a very rich dish indeed. I could see serving this as a main dish and adding some vegetables on the side - there have to be some Ethiopian vegetable recipes online! - or feeding my vegetarian/vegan friends with it. It can be served hot or cold and would make an interesting addition to a potluck. The version that appears below includes my adjustments.  

From Exotic Ethiopian Cooking: Society, Culture, Hospitality, and Traditions by D.J. Mesfin. 

Yekik Alich'a  

2 cups split peas (red or green; I used green) 
4 cups water 
2 cups red onion, chopped 
1 cup oil (we used canola for the neutral flavor) 
1 Tbsp ginger paste (or chopped fresh ginger)
1 Tbsp garlic paste (or chopped fresh garlic)
4 fresh jalapenos, chopped 
1 tsp black pepper 
salt to taste 

Rinse the split peas and boil until soft; this took about 30 minutes but your mileage may vary. Drain. 

Cook the onions with the oil, stirring often. Add the peas, garlic, ginger, and black pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, about 20-30 minutes. The longer you cook this, the less defined your peas will be so keep going if you want something that is more like a paste than separate peas. Stir in the jalapenos and salt to taste. Serve over rice (or ideally with injera, if you've thought ahead 3 days to ferment the dough). 

Burger of the Week Continues: A Thoroughly Bougie Burger

Our household's love affair with The Great Big Burger Book continues unabated. Someone in the house picks out a new burger for us every week, to be served - regardless of the serving suggestions - with a sheet pan full of Tater Tots. It's entirely possible that this will be the first cookbook I make every single recipe from, assuming I can find a fishmonger somewhere in the area to supply me suitably for Chapter 3 (I am ignorant and useless when it comes to cooking fish, so I'm afraid of making substitutions)(among other problems)(clearly I need a cookbook dedicated entirely to fish so that I can finally learn how to cook it)(I eat sushi, fer cryin' out loud - why am I so terrified of undercooking seafood? The worst that can happen is I'll kill us all from some food-borne pathogen). 

This latest burger has been made significantly less posh by my interpretation. Billed as "the rich man's hamburger," it has a lovely list of ingredients that didn't quite exist in my pantry as written; there is no greater indicator of my growth as a cook than my confidence in modifying and substituting in recipes, and this one is a great example. I can only imagine how delightful this would be if I actually followed the recipe, as the bougie-fied version was really flavorful and made outstanding leftovers. As written, the recipe made one half-pound burger and claimed that even if you were full you'd be willing to eat the entire thing, which I don't doubt. However, we've all learned a valuable lesson from the Big Mock double-decker burger experiment - namely, don't. Making yourself sick from overeating is not necessarily a compliment to the cook. 

I'm writing the recipe as we made it, with smaller 1/4-pound patties that make a more reasonable serving size. A little goes a long way with these, honestly. One of these days I'll revisit it and faithfully follow the recipe, perhaps when I've cooked my way through the rest of the book. In the meantime, here's my version, which is somewhere above solidly-middle-class but nowhere near posh: The Bougie Burger. 

Adapted from The Great Big Burger Book by Jane Murphy and Liz Yeh Singh. I can't believe I haven't yet convinced you to buy it, this is a fantastic cookbook. 

The Bougie Burger 

1 lb top round
1 small onion, minced 
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard 
4 dashes Tabasco or hot sauce of your choice, possibly scaled up a bit if you're feeling it. I used a big dollop of Anna's Fuego from Spicy Caribbee, which I don't expect anyone who hasn't visited San Juan lately has in their fridge 
4 egg yolks. Under no circumstances should you listen to your husband and use the whole egg, because your burgers will be gloppy and thus crack in the pan and you will be sad 
4 dashes Worchestershire sauce
2 Tbsp dry sherry or whiskey (I realize these are not substitutes for each other in any normal sense. Use 2 Tbsp cognac instead, depending on the state of your liquor cabinet. I was absolutely not going to buy cognac just for this purpose)
1 tsp salt 
2 Tbsp capers, drained and chopped 
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper. Yes, it makes a difference here. 
1 Tbsp butter plus 1 Tbsp oil 

Pulse the beef in the food processor until it's coarsely ground. Honestly, this makes such a superior meat I can't believe I don't do it for all my burgers. Hahahahahaha. But really it does make a difference. Gently mix in all the other ingredients except the butter and oil, then form into 4 patties. 

Melt the butter and oil together in a large skillet. Fry the burgers until they're as done as you like; 4 minutes per side gave me a nice medium burger.  

The original version calls for blotting the pan, then frying the bun cut side-down and serving it with a mustard-horseradish butter and some good bleu cheese crumbled over the top. We served the burgers naked on a sesame seed bun and they were delightful, but I have no doubt that the original version is superior in every way. Do please buy the cookbook and try it, and let me know how it goes. 

A Non-Traumatic Christmas Breakfast For Once: Currant Scones

 Christmas breakfast has been known to be traumatic around here (see https://normalonpaper.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-sad-saga-of-christmas-breakfast.html and https://normalonpaper.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-christmas-breakfast-saga-continues.html for previous breakfast traumas). And we don't even talk about the year when my Christmas breakfast was currant scones, champagne, and tears. But things have calmed down, partly as a function of my kids getting older and thus more helpful, David's dietary restrictions loosening up, and my general giving of fewer fucks with the passage of time. Things were so chill and organized this year that I decided, 10 minutes before breakfast, that we needed a batch of (non-teary) scones to go with a pot of tea after we demolished the breakfast casserole. 

I love scones. My introduction to them was an unexpected delivery from Zingerman's, which is both an unmitigated delight and the best possible introduction to any baked good. They've always felt exotic and special to me since then, and I loved coffee shop trips in my thirties when I found scones in the bakery case. I was delighted to realize that they're dead easy to make and are just as exotic and delicious at home with a pot of tea (yes, I realize scones are actually the opposite of exotic, they're basically a muffin that doesn't leave you with an annoying pan to wash, or a rich biscuit with fruit - both very ordinary foods). 

This is such an easy recipe as written, but I've adapted it slightly to make it Even Easier and to take zero bowls, unless you count the one from the food processor, which I don't because it fits in my dishwasher and I don't have to hand-wash it. How to Cook Everything was one the first cookbooks I've destroyed through love and over-use, though I refuse to replace it with an updated version no matter how dilapidated it becomes; the new versions have everything in the wrong order and they don't have 2 decades worth of notes written in the margins. Mark Bittman helped me become a good home cook, leaving behind the Gourmet Magazine excesses of my twenties and actually managing to produce something on weeknights on a regular basis. It's sufficiently comprehensive that I'll never manage to cook my way through it, and it continues to be my go-to when I have an ingredient I'm not necessarily feeling inspired by. 

These really are at their best the day they're made. I've never tried freezing and reviving them because they never last long enough; I was shocked to wake up this morning and realize that we had three left from yesterday's breakfast. They were perfectly fine with a cup of coffee, but they dry out quickly and the crumb isn't as tender. I'm only going to recommend the food processor method if you're using gluten-free flour mix, as there's no danger of overworking your dough and thus overdeveloping the gluten and making your scones tough. While they're not as tender a crumb as a scone made with wheat flour, they're also not going to make anyone in your house sick or sad that they're missing out. 

Adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. 

Non-Traumatic Christmas Breakfast Scones 

2 cups GF flour blend (we're using Bob's Red Mill these days)
1 tsp salt 
4 tsp baking powder 
2 Tbsp sugar 
5 Tbsp butter, ideally cold, cut into pieces 
3 eggs 
3/4 cup heavy cream 
1/3 cup dried currants or other dried fruit even though currants are best 
1 Tbsp water 

Preheat the oven to 450. The rest of this will come together in the time it takes the oven to come to temperature. 

Put all the dry ingredients minus one tablespoon of the sugar into the bowl of your food processor and pulse to blend. Sprinkle the butter over the top and pulse to combine; your flour will look more like coarse cornmeal once everything is blended in. Beat the eggs with the cream and pour over the top, then pulse to just barely blend. Sprinkle the currants evenly over the top and pulse a few times to combine. Pulse a few more times to fake the step where you gently knead the dough on a floured cutting board, which is altogether too much work and too sticky with GF flour. 

Turn out onto a baking sheet and pat into a 1 1/2-inch thick round or rectangle. Cut into triangles (or use a biscuit cutter if you're being fancy; you can re-pat the scraps to make as many as possible). 

Beat the third egg with the water and brush over the top, then sprinkle with the second tablespoon of sugar. Bake 7-9 minutes or until the tops are light golden in color, which actually happens even though they're gluten-free thanks to the egg. 

This is Not a Burger: Chop Suey Something

Weeknight dinners have become pretty routine around here since I went back to work full-time. As much as I love variety and new things for dinner, the need to get food on the table before 10 p.m. limits what I can reasonably do. As a result, we've had a regular go-to list of the same items in rotation, and not much of it is something I feel the need to preserve in writing. 

The burger cookbook, though.... I've posted recipes from this one before, specifically the amazing Big Mac knock-off that has become a staple around here and black bean burgers that non-vegetarians will enjoy. This book lets me not think too hard about the grocery list but adds a lot of variety to burger night; we're well on our way to cooking every recipe in here (though I suspect the seafood section will pose some difficulty. We'll have to wait until John moves out). While cooking from this book falls into the category of Having Burgers Once a Week, it does give us an excuse to make Tater Tots on the regular and lets me try more variations on a simple theme. 

This recipe for a "chop suey burger" - the most American version of an American dish masquerading as Chinese - is a bit of a departure from the burger patty. I honestly don't know how they can justify calling it a burger when it is clearly something that needs to be ladled over hot rice and eaten with a fork. Nonetheless, it's much more delicious than I would have thought from the ingredient list, which is full of vegetables but no spices whatsoever. We doubled the recipe below so there was enough for Hungry Teenage Boy and also leftovers for lunch the next day; as written it says it makes 6 "burgers" but I really have my doubts about their math. Note that if you double the recipe you don't end up with extra bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.  

From "The Great Big Burger Book" by Jane Murphy and Liz Yeh SIngh, which I discovered at Kyrie's cottage and bought on a whim. No regrets. 

Chop Suey Something That is Definitely Not a Burger 

1 lb. ground pork
1 tsp soy sauce 
2 Tbsp oyster sauce 
1 medium yellow onion, chopped 
1 Tbsp canola oil 
1 cup chopped bok choy 
1/4 cup bamboo shoots 
4 oz white mushrooms, sliced 
1/4 cup sliced water chestnuts, drained 
1 celery stalk, sliced 
1 cup chicken broth 
2 Tbsp cornstarch 
1/4 cup water 

In a large skillet, brown the pork with the soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of the oyster sauce, and the onion until the meat is no longer pink. Transfer it to a bowl. 

Heat the skillet over high heat until it's really, really hot. Add the oil and swirl around the bottom of the pan to also make it really, really hot, then add the bok choy, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, water chestnuts, and celery. Cook until the vegetables are just softened, about 4 minutes, then add the pork and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes. 

Make a slurry of the remaining tablespoon of oyster sauce, cornstarch, and water. Add to the skillet slowly and bring to a boil for about a minute or until the sauce is thickened. 

Serve over rice. The original recipe recommends serving it over toasted French bread but I think that's just a last-ditch effort to make it sound like this is actually a burger. I see no need to bring knives into the equation. 

This Ain't No Shirley Temple: A Mocktail for Grown-Ups

While I cherish our pre-Thanksgiving tradition of throwing back some bourbon while polishing the silver and getting the table ready, I'm not always ready to leap into a second day of imbibing while there are still food-type things occurring in the kitchen. I have too much respect for hot stoves and sharp knives. That being said, the holiday calls for something festive to drink; and if you're cooking responsibly and want your guests to both feel welcome and be okay to drive home later, you might want to start with a signature mocktail. 

The very word makes me roll my eyes 99% of the time - if you're over 10 and think a Shirley Temple* is a fancy treat, most mocktail recipes were designed with you in mind. They're rarely anything more than fancied-up pop served in a glass you have to hand wash. In my experience, mocktails have been too sweet, too simple, and too - well, childish - to replace an actual cocktail. 

After much scouring of the internet, I'm delighted to be proven wrong by this recipe, which features non-alcoholic gin - something I surely never envisioned myself purchasing - which adds a level of complexity to this drink and really makes it feel like a drink for a special day. The only annoying ingredient is juniper berries, which I happened to have in my pantry but have since found very hard to replace; none of the bougie stores near me carry them and I had to resort to amazon.com for a replacement batch (sorry, Penzey's - I just couldn't bring myself to fight the traffic to give you my business). 

As with most cocktail recipes these scale up easily, and will make the entire holiday crowd marvel at the fact that they're non-alcoholic. You could, of course, add Actual Gin to make it a cocktail, and those are delightful too. 

This recipe comes from Southern Living and is attributed to Austin bar owner Chris Marshall. The link from the syrup recipe is super-annoyingly broken so it took a bit of digging to find the actual drink recipe, which I have thoughtfully included below.  

Berry Juniper Fizz Mocktail

For the juniper syrup: 

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons crushed juniper berries 

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, stir in the juniper berries, and steep for 30 minutes. Strain and store in the fridge until you run out because it's good in everything. 

For the mocktail: 

1 oz. juniper syrup
1 oz gin (NA or regular)
2 oz. pomegranate juice 
1/2 oz. orange juice 
Cranberry sparkling juice 

In a cocktail shaker, shake the first 4 ingredients with ice until frothy. Strain into a coupe glass and top with cranberry sparkling juice. 

If you're not using a coupe - and frankly, who is? - the proportion we ended up using in my vintage don't-know-the-name-of-the-glass barware was about 1 part shaken ingredients to 2 parts sparkling juice. We also made these as a large batch so we didn't shake them over ice, and it was just fine. 

* I adore Shirley Temple. I have a box set of DVDs of many of her movies in all their problematic glory. 

 

Camping Oats, and Yes All We Did Was Eat All Weekend

Last weekend David and I decided to go camping with our friend Kristi, partly to escape the annual horror that is the Woodward Dream Cruise and partly because camping is fun and we haven't gone in a long time. There's always that part where you're dragging out the tent and the camping gear and the sleeping bags and wondering if a little time sleeping out in nature is worth all the fuss. The answer is yes, it is, and the best part of camping is eating. 

I realize this may not be true for everyone. I do have some pretty fond memories of a camping trip early in our marriage that peaked with bologna sandwiches and wine coolers around the campfire, but for the most part we see no reason to eat less imaginatively while camping than we do at home, albeit with a little more advance prep work. While I wouldn't recommend, say, spaghetti and meatballs, it's perfectly possible to do a nice curry or stir-fry if you bring the camp stove. For several years we used to kick off the annual fraternity canoe trip with a charcoal-fired Chinese hot pot, which was perfect for the long catching-up conversations we always started the weekend with. And pancakes and sausages are practically required on Saturday mornings, which is actually kind of funny because I consider them to be altogether too much of a bother most Saturdays at home. 

While David's massaman curry was a big hit, my favorite meal of the trip was the oats we had on Sunday. I'm usually indifferent to oatmeal unless it's topped with a big scoop of ice cream (a la The Fly Trap) but these were even better than that, plus I can tell myself I had a serving of vegetables along with it. We quadrupled the recipe to feed three hungry and legitimately-not-hung-over adults, but here I've scaled it down for one person. You could even make a big batch of this and have it for breakfast all week, pretending that you're actually sitting around a morning campfire. The only real trick is to make sure you remember to start the oats the night before, which we remembered perfectly well despite the liberal application of wine and whiskey the night before. 

You could also make this with regular oats and start cooking the morning of, in which case you can use milk instead of water for the cooking. You could also use steel-cut oats and cook them the morning of, if you don't mind waiting forever and ever for your breakfast; might I suggest passing the time drinking some percolator coffee? :-) 

From a cookbook that Kristi bought and whose cover I've never seen, so I have no idea what it's called. Kudos to the mysterious authors, because I would never in a million years thought of this on my own. 

Camping Oats 

1/4 cup steel-cut oats
1 cup water 
1 medium carrot, grated 
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger 
2 Tbsp dried cherries (or raisins. I know which I prefer) 
1 tsp peanut butter 
1 tsp maple syrup 
1 Tbsp crushed cashews or pecans or whatever your nut of choice may be 
1 handful fresh blueberries 

The night before, heat the water to a boil in a small pot and stir in the oats,. Turn off the heat and let sit overnight. 

The next morning, stir in the grated carrot, dried cherries, cinnamon, and ginger and cook the oatmeal over medium heat until the carrot is tender, about 5 minutes. 

Stir in the peanut butter, maple syrup, and cashews. Top with the blueberries. You are getting vegetables and fruit in this meal! And fiber! You're so healthy! 

 

The Recipe Anna Didn't Take: Almost-Charmoula Chicken

When Anna left her job at the Fly Trap, a celebrated local diner, she had a lot of recipes in her head. She'd  been there for over a year and worked around these recipes every day, so it was hard to erase that knowledge straightaway. She didn't write anything down, alas, so we have to head up to the restaurant if we want any of our former favorites (though she continues to be the Queen of All Things Aioli, to my cholesterol level's dismay). 

So I was very happy when I came across this recipe in a cookbook we've had forever and not cooked from recently. I've been feeling a little guilty about the number of cookbooks we've purchased and not yet used when we have so very many on our shelves already... but that's an ongoing lingering guilt I don't imagine I'll ever resolve. Meantime, it was time to revisit this one after we discovered more chicken that we expected in the freezer. It's either Middle Eastern or North African, depending on whether you believe the cookbook or the restaurant; there's a lot of crossover between the two cuisines.

If you have the time and inclination, by all means follow the original recipe and use bone-in chicken pieces cooked on the grill. It's delicious. But if you're trying to crank out a weeknight dinner, swap in some boneless skinless chicken breasts and bake them. The marinade takes a few minutes to put together but you could always make it in advance - ambitious weekend meal prep, anyone? - and the marinade time is super flexible so it will work with whatever your schedule is. We've done the bare minimum 15 minutes and been very happy with the outcome, especially if we put a bit of the marinade over the chicken while it bakes. 

It practically screams to be wrapped up in some good Syrian bread with a bit of toum, if you happen to have a ridiculous amount of it left over from the graduation party. It would be (ok - it is) delightful as the Fly Trap serves it - on grilled sourdough with Jack cheese and caramelized onions and a swoosh of lemon garlic aioli. But it's also delicious as-is, with seasoned rice or whatever you like on the side. 

From Hot Chicken [A Cookbook] by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison. 

Almost Charmoula Chicken 

2 frying chickens, cut into pieces, or whatever amount of boneless skinless chicken breasts you think you want 
Zest of 2 lemons
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (I do recommend thegood stuff here)
3/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp sweet paprika 
2 tsp cayenne 
1 1/2 tsp salt 
6 cloves garlic, minced 
4 small shallots, minced 
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup chopped mint leaves 
Dash of nutmeg, unless you forget it 

Mix all the marinade ingredients together except the nutmeg. Put the chicken in a large Ziploc bag and pour the marinade over it, seal it up, and squoosh it around to thoroughly coat the chicken. Put it in the fridge and marinate for as little as 15 minutes or as long as 8 hours, turning periodically if you're marinating for a longer time. I'd recommend you marinate on the longer side if you're using bone-in chicken. 

Heat the oven to 350 or light the grill. If you're baking it, put a little of the marinade over the top of the chicken and bake for 30 minutes (I'm not sure why the original recipe calls for 25 minutes at 425 - that sounds like a recipe for some dried-out chicken, imho). If you're grilling, you should already know what you're doing and don't need instructions from me. Dab on a little of the remaining marinade while you're cooking, if you like.  

Sprinkle a dash of nutmeg (or grate a bit fresh, if you're fancy-schmancy and have a whole nutmeg on hand) over the top and serve. 

Other Jen's Corn Salad, and a few thoughts on graduation

We've been caught up in the whirlwind of John's graduation this year - prom, the senior all-night party, graduation, the grad party, everyone else's grad party.... It's felt like a lot, and I didn't really know what to expect as Anna graduated in the middle of Covid shutdowns. It was wonderful in a lot of ways but also very hectic, and I'd be lying to you if I didn't admit that there were a lot of emotions on my part. Even though both my kids are living at home for the foreseeable future, there is a sense of loss. They don't need us in the ways they used to (other than driving John places, because the driver's license saga continues. Sigh.) and it's the start of the empty nesting that friends have warned me about. Like everything else to do with parenting, you can't really understand it until you're going through it. 

With all the frantic activity of May, it was wonderful to be invited to our friends' house for dinner over Memorial Day weekend - one less thing to think about and plan. As much as I despise Pinterest (I actually have a plug-in for my browser called Unpinterested, which removes all Pinterest results from my searches), I will freely admit that this summer corn salad that Jen found is an absolute winner and has found its place on our table several times already. It stays crunchy for at least a few days - I made enough for leftovers - and it's a nice side for tacos, burgers, chicken, or anything else that wants some summer corn with it. In my opinion, this is just about everything, as I never get sick of corn, but it's nice to have something a little more dressed up than the steamed or grilled corn that's my go-to. I'd definitely take it to a party though I'd be careful about the mayo; not that I actually think it would last once people get a taste of it. 

In a pinch I think you could probably use frozen baby corn; we'll see if I get a craving for this mid-winter (I will) and I'll report back. 

I'm a Pinterest idiot so I really don't know who to attribute this to, but it will always be my friend Jen's corn salad in my mind. The link I followed had ingredients but no instructions, but it seemed pretty basic to me - combine everything and reduce the number of bowls you need to wash.  

The Other Jen's Corn Salad 

1 cup chopped cilantro
4 cups corn, ideally cut off the cob 
1 jalapeno or equivalent squeeze of jalapeno paste from the tube you found at Aldi 
1 bell pepper, chopped 
1/2 chopped red onion or equivalent amount of green onions, depending on what you have on hand
4 Tbsp lime juice 
2 Tbsp mayonnaise 
3 Tbsp sour cream 
1/2 tsp chili powder 
1/4 tsp kosher salt 
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp olive oil 
2/3 cup Cotija cheese, if you can find it

Combine the cilantro and vegetables in a large bowl. Mix together the rest of the ingredients except the Cotija cheese, then fold into the vegetables. Sprinkle the cheese on top before serving, or put it on the side if you have a picky teenager who doesn't like dairy and can't possibly be your child.  

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I Still Have a Quinoa (Salad) Problem, and Also a New One

Once upon a time, there was a Brunch Princess who fell in love with a highly attractive and easy-to-make salad. It was a fun time for them, it being summer and all, and the salad went everywhere with the princess. People thought the salad was exciting and exotic because quinoa wasn't everywhere back in those days, and the princess loved how the salad could sit out in the sun and not end up killing everyone. The princess's favorite potato salad was a little jealous, but the princess made sure to let the potato salad know that it was still loved whenever there was a party at home, with refrigeration. Then one day the princess fell in love with another quinoa salad and wrote a blog post about it. 

Falling in love with another quinoa salad doesn't mean that we don't love the original quinoa salad - it's more akin to having another child than it is replacing your spouse. I managed to explain this concept to my daughter at age 2 but I don't have a lot of faith that Quinoa Salad #1 will understand, and it will be an uneasy truce between the two anytime I have an event to bring a dish to. 

I also heard that the jump from one to two is the hardest, and that I should add another quinoa salad to my repertoire. I'll hardly notice the extra work and two of the salads can periodically gang up on the other one. I'm sure it will all work out just fine. 

This recipe comes from March 2010 issue of Cooking Light magazine, which I still miss - curse you, internet recipe archives! Happily I still have a decades' worth of the annual collection cookbooks, but they're not for sale at Amazon anymore so you'll have to do some online thrifting to find it. If you come across any of these annual collections at a garage sale or used book store, I encourage you to pick them up; there's no better collection of fast and easy recipes, random food knowledge, and look back at past food trends than this. 

I Still Have a Quinoa (Salad) Problem

1 cup quinoa
1 cup stock
1/2 cup  water 
1/2 cup orange juice 
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
3 Tbsp lemon juice 
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground red pepper 
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 roasted red pepper, chopped (use the jarred ones - no reason to be ambitious and roast your own)
12 olives, chopped 
1/4 cup pistachios, chopped 

Put the quinoa, broth, juice, and water in a pot. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. 

Put the cilantro, oil, parsley, lemon juice, spices, and garlic into a food processor and mix until smooth. 

Toss the quinoa with the dressing, chickpeas, red pepper, and olives. Top with the pistachios.  

(No)Danger Noodles: An Injury-Free Dinner at Last

Having both cut and burned myself making dinner last night (okonomiyaki, in case you're wondering), I decided that I needed a recipe that required neither knives nor a pan - and I actually have one, because owning hundreds of cookbooks is delightful. This recipe was originally scheduled for a night when there were only 3 of us eating, but because of Reasons we ended up with 6 people, 3 of them teenagers. We repurposed some leftovers and doubled the noodles and everyone went away feeling pleasantly full. Huzzah for noodles! 

And huzzah for this sauce, which is fantastic. You could use just about any Asian noodle with it, but we went with rice ramen because that's what Costco sells. As I said, you can double the noodles and end up with a slightly drier dish. You could skip the chicken and it's vegan. The ingredient list will justify your recent binge at the Asian grocery store, and if you don't have sambal oelek you can substitute Sriracha and nobody will be the wiser. 

I can already tell this is going to become a summer weeknight favorite. It comes together in less time than it takes to boil the water for the noodles; buy the kind that you just soak in hot water for a few minutes and you can have dinner on the table in under 10 minutes. Seriously. You won't overheat your kitchen and you won't make a lot of dirty dishes and you can even skip the first step if you're really not feeling it. Aldi sells cilantro and green onions so we pretty much always have them on hand so I don't even have to think ahead. Best of all, it's almost impossible to injure yourself while cooking it. 

** A side note about the element of danger in my kitchen: With Anna both in culinary school and cooking for work and my general accident-proneness, there are so many cooking injuries in our household that we've had to come up with criteria for what actually constitutes an injury rather than an annoyance or an anecdote. We also have a "This department has gone ___ days without an injury" sign next to the fridge. Our record is "several." 

(No) Danger Noodles

1 Tbsp sesame oil, divided
1 Tbsp ginger paste
2 cloves garlic, minced, or equivalent amount of garlic paste
2 cups chopped cooked chicken 
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 Tbsp soy sauce 
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp hoisin sauce 
2 tsp sambal oelek or Sriracha
1 7-oz package rice noodles (if you like it saucy) or more 
2 Tbsp chopped roasted peanuts unless your husband ate them all 

Heat 2 teaspoons oil in small pan, then add the ginger and garlic. Cook about 1 minute, stirring constantly. Or skip this step altogether because you can; the garlic and ginger will be a tiny bit sharper but still delicious. 

Add the other ingredients, up to the noodles. 

Cook your noodles and add them to the bowl, then top with the peanuts. Enjoy your extra leisure time and clean kitchen. 

Meatless Monday, Meet Taco Tuesday: Actually Delicious Black Bean Burgers

While Wednesday will always be Prince Spaghetti Day (an advertising campaign that scarred an entire generation), Meatless Monday and Taco Tuesday have earned their well-deserved place in our hearts. I personally advocate for Waffle Wednesday too, but hardly anyone likes breakfast for dinner as much as I do. Regardless, my beloved Great Big Burger Book has come through for me again and now you can have an actually delicious, not mealy, not dry vegetarian burger that holds together, made from actual ingredients in your kitchen and not fabricated in a lab somewhere. It's not even any more work than a meat burger. You're welcome. 

Good and healthy!

I have complicated feelings about Meatless Monday. On the one hand, it's definitely a healthy option (or can be - let's face it, we can make anything unhealthy around here), eating meatless is cheaper, we should all be eating less meat, Greta Thunberg, etc. etc. I often wish we ate more vegetarian meals, but I'm feeding a teenage boy who eats his weight in food every dinnertime and it's a lot more planning in our gluten-free house: there are no consistently available and convenient vegetarian foods that are both gluten-free and budget-friendly. And let's be honest, the same contrary streak that leads me to eat meat and chocolate every single Friday in Lent also makes me to want to chomp on a great big steak every Monday night. I've met a fair number of evangelical vegetarians and vegans that bring out the same streak. It's a character flaw, I admit. 

I'd like to take a moment to make another sales pitch for The Great Big Burger Book; my friend Kyrie won a copy of it at a school fundraiser auction and I read it cover-to-cover during one of our cottage weekends. (Please tell me you read cookbooks cover-to-cover. I can't possibly be the only one.) I have a long-held ambition to cook my way through an entire cookbook a la "Julie and Julia" and this may be the one that makes it. I've made a pretty significant dent in it; the only deterrent is a couple of portobello burgers near the end. On the other hand, nothing says I have to eat every burger in the book, only cook them. At any rate, if you like grilling during the summer this is an indispensable book and will break you out of your bacon cheeseburger rut and you'll be very happy. Also there is a Big Mac recipe in there - the "Big Mock" - that is amazing and will ruin the original for you. 

You can tell which one I think is more fun

The massive amount of chili powder gives these a nice kick that counteracts the blandness of the beans and the tortilla chips help the patties hold their shape. As with almost everything I make these days - see above RE: Teenage Boy - I can personally verify that it's easy as anything to double this. Since Teenage Boy's best friend is (a non-evangelical) vegan and we are hoping to do a gaming/camping weekend this summer that includes him, I'm looking forward to trotting these out and making everyone around the campfire feel happy and full but not too full for s'mores. 

From the Great Big Burger Book, which you ought to buy, by Jane Murphy and Liz Yeh Singh. 

Actually Delicious Black Bean Burgers 

2 15-oz cans black beans, rinsed and well-drained (don't use dried beans here; you want the softer texture of canned)(also convenience)(and planning ahead sucks) 
1 small red onion, minced (or diced if you like bigger crunchy bits mixed in)
1/2 cup minced green pepper (diced, etc. etc.)
1/2 cup finely crushed tortilla chips 
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro 
1 Tbsp chili powder 
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes 
2 tsp canola oil 

Mash the beans in a large mixing bowl. Add everything except the oil and mix well, then shape into 4 1-inch thick patties. It's important to press these together well so they don't fall apart; next time we'll try using our burger press and see if we can't get them perfect instead of merely very, very good. 

Heat the oil over medium-high heat and cook the burgers until crisp on the outside, 2-4 minutes per side. 

We served these on buns with some shredded Mexican cheese and one of Anna's improvised aioli, but I think any of your favorite taco topping would be great. 

Go ahead and make a mess: Chicken Spinach Cannelloni Pie

Here’s the thing: most cooking isn’t hard. While I don’t particularly want to tackle homemade phyllo dough or anything that involves a candy thermometer, you basically do all the same things to cook whatever it is you’re cooking. The only true complication, in my mind, is the number of dishes you’re willing to wash in order to accomplish a given dish.

This particular recipe was worth the sinkful, especially since I roped the rest of the family into washing most of it. I was in dire need of some comfort food and this riff on stuffed cannelloni really spoke to me; it’s like lasagna but better (and with more dishes). Yesterday was sunny and warm – relatively speaking, because it’s February – and the demands of sunny-day comfort foods are different than those of cold, sunless days. I wasn’t quite ready to bury myself in a pile of mashed potatoes or cassoulet but something rich and cheesy hit just the right balance. Plus I didn’t have to make a giant mess of myself trying to stuff cannelloni noodles – if you have a technique for doing this without ending up with cheese on every available surface, do please let me know.

I did take some shortcuts here. For starters, I didn’t think I needed to be a purist and make my own tomato sauce for something that had so much else going on. I also took out a few of the “put this in a bowl and this other thing in another bowl” instructions because that just seemed silly. If you’re combining two bowls of mixed ingredients, just throw them all in the same bowl and make sure you mix everything really well. Voila, one less dish to wash! And there was no way in hell I was making my own fresh pasta sheet to fit the pan; ready-to-bake GF lasagna noodles were plenty good enough for me. (To be fair, the recipe didn’t explicitly call for making your own lasagna noodles. But how else do you find individual fresh noodles to fit a 13x9 pan? No such thing exists unless you roll it out yourself and hell no.)

I suppose you could cheat further and use a doctored-up jarred alfredo sauce, but I don’t think much of them and this sauce was easy enough to make. It probably would have been easier to work with if I hadn’t stuck it in the fridge for a couple of hours but this is why we have spatulas, yes? The recipe notes point out that you could make this sauce on its own and serve it with seafood pasta, which would be delightful too.

Adapted from Pot Pies: Comfort Food Under Cover by Diane Phillips, a book that I aspire to cook my way through.

Chicken Spinach Cannelloni Pie

For the sauce:
6 Tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, mashed (or a big spoonful of garlic paste, because 1 clove does nothing whatsoever)
6 Tbsp flour (GF blend works fine. If yours is heavy in cornstarch, you might want to use a little less)
3 cups milk
½ tsp salt
6 shakes hot sauce (I used Red Hot)
Pinch of grated nutmeg
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (cheat and use the pre-grated stuff NOT in the green can though)

For the pie:
1 10-oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed if you think to take it out in time
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
¼ cup chopped parsley
3 large eggs
2 cups ricotta cheese (measure, don’t just dump a huge container in there or you’ll end up with too much filling and the end result will be much messier than needed)
¾ cup Parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
½ tsp or more freshly ground pepper
1 jar prepared tomato sauce (or your own, if you’re feeling it)
Lasagna noodles of your choice, cooked if that’s what the package tells you to do

 

Make the sauce:

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and add the garlic and cook for a minute or two. Stir in the flour and cook the roux for a couple of minutes, until it bubbles a little. Whisk in the milk and spices and cook until the sauce is thick and creamy. Stir in the Parmesan until it melts.

Assemble the pie:

Beat the eggs in a medium mixing bowl, the add the spinach, chicken, parsley, ricotta, and ½ cup of the Parmesan and mix really well. You can do the spinach, chicken and parsley in one bowl and the eggs, ricotta, and Parmesan in another, but you’re just going to mix them together anyway so why bother dirtying an extra bowl. Salt and pepper to taste.

Put ½ cup tomato sauce in the bottom of a 13x9 pan, which you may or may not have remembered to coat with non-stick cooking spray. Put down a layer of noodles and spread half the filling over it. Cover with another layer of noodles.

Cover the noodle layer with half the cream sauce, then stripe it with some tomato sauce (this took about ¾ cup or so but I wasn’t measuring by this point). Cover with the remaining filling and top with another layer of noodles. Note that there is not a layer of noodles between the two layers of filling; if you add one, this will not fit in your pan for some reason and you’ll make a giant mess in your oven. This is not a hypothetical situation. If you’ve made lasagna a thousand times and think you know better than Diane Phillips, you’re wrong.  

Cover with the remaining cream sauce, then the rest of the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with the ¼ cup remaining Parmesan cheese.

 Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, then let it rest at least 10 minutes before cutting into it. If you get impatient and cut it sooner, you’ll make a giant mess.

Tasty Dystopian Glop for Dinner: Wife Soup

Cold, depressing winter days call for soup. If you're feeling low because we've seen the sun for approximately 30 minutes in the last 3 months here in Michigan, might I suggest something inspired by the always-low-key-depressed crew of the Serenity? 

For any of you that aren't nerds, Serenity is the name of the spaceship in Firefly, our favorite "cancelled so far ahead of its time that it inspired a nerd uprising that got a movie made" sci-fi show. The crew does crime to survive, and their perpetual poverty is sometimes referred to via the apparently horrible food they have to eat. The only bright spot in this gastronomic wasteland is something referred to as "wife soup," as Zoe will make this for her husband Wash when he's been especially good. I found a recipe inspired by this in one of our Christmas cookbook acquisitions, "The Geeky Chef Cookbook." If you're a fan of - well, anything - you'll find a recipe here, from Zelda to Doctor Who, The Wheel of Time to Breaking Bad. 

I will say this about Wife Soup: if I was on a beat-up spacecraft at the farthest reaches of known space, half-starving and on the run from the authorities, I'd find this pretty comforting. If I was in my dreary Michigan kitchen looking at random produce in my refrigerator, I'd find it pretty inspiring. Regardless of location, I'd find it to be weird-looking; it's seriously green and very thick, just the sort of dystopian glop that fits my current mood. So, so tasty though. There's a big kick of black pepper that warms you right up, and you can feel virtuous as hell for eating something that's so full of vegetables. 

Adapted slightly from "The Geeky Chef Cookbook" by Cassandra Reeder, The Geeky Chef, whose ingenuity and sheer range of fandoms I absolutely admire. Please buy this for the nerds in your life.  

Wife Soup 

2 Tbsp olive oil or butter 
1 large onion, chipped 
1 tsp salt 
2 ribs celery, ideally with the leaves 
1 tsp black pepper 
2 cloves minced garlic 
2 russet potatoes, peeled and chopped 
1 cup split peas (I used split lentils because that's what I had) 
4 cups (or more - much more) chicken or vegetable stock 
2 cups broccoli florets
2 zucchini, chopped 
5 fresh basil leaves (or 2 tsp dried, if your fresh basil got nasty in the fridge) 
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder 
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Heat the olive oil or butter in a large saucepan, then add the onion and salt and saute until it begins to turn transculent. Add the celery and black pepper and cook another 5- minute. Add the garlic when the celery starts to soften. 

Add the potatoes, split peas (or lentils), and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer about 45 minutes - 1 hour, until the potatoes and peas (or lentils) are soft.

Stir in the broccoli and zucchini. Simmer until the broccoli is tender; add more stock or water if needed. Stir in the spinach, basil, onion powder, and garlic powder. 

Puree in a blender (your immersion blender probably can't handle this). Stir in the lemon juice (if you remember it), maybe add a pinch of cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste. 

The Third-Best Shawarma in the World

I like to pick up new cookbooks when we travel, ideally something related to the area we're visiting. This is why I inexplicably came home with a Middle Eastern cookbook after visiting my cousin in St. Louis. We've enjoyed all the recipes we've made from it, even the not-very-successful Tunisian tuna brik (operator error, I assure you). There are quite a few snacky items, vegetable chips and such, and I love the storytelling in the introductions. There are a few recipes I've made just because I liked the story. 

Our hands-down favorite is a recipe for shawarma. In this house, we are shawarma snobs; we've been spoiled by the good stuff and have developed unfortunately high standards as a result (we discover this anew every time we try to eat Middle Eastern food outside of the metro Detroit area. I don't know why we keep trying. Surely other parts of the country have Lebanese grandmothers?). The Very Best Shawarma in the world comes from Mideast Oasis in Royal Oak, where Halim will sometimes make you a fresh cup of coffee and ply you with pastries while he cooks your shawarma to order. There are a lot of contenders for second-best, but I'll give this a solid third place which I think is pretty impressive considering it comes from a home kitchen. 

This recipe, fittingly titled The Home Shawarma Experience, does a fine job of satisfying my little food snobs. It doubled, triples, and quadruples beautifully and can be used for chicken or beef instead of lamb. Chop your meat and it fills a sandwich or tops a Flaming Moe*; use bone-in chicken thighs and you've got perfectly portioned buffet servings. I've yet to have leftovers of this no matter how much I make. The recipe is forgiving enough that I don't actually use measuring spoons anymore, and if your house has the misfortune to be dairy-free you can leave out the yogurt and just increase the cider vinegar and olive oil.  

Do please make this yourself. You'll be so happy you did. 

* Have I not mentioned the Flaming Moe? It's basically fattoush topped with mjadara and shawarma, based on an occasional special at the restaurant my sister used to work at. It's fabulous. 

Recipe adapted from New Middle Eastern Street Food by Sally Butcher. My version is much less informative and amusing.

The Third-Best Shawarma in the World 

For every 2 pounds of meat, mix together the following: 

1 cup plain yogurt 
6 cloves minced garlic (or equivalent amount of garlic paste, which is great when you're making 10 pounds of meat) 
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt 
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil

Mix all the ingredients together and marinate your meat in it for up to 24 hours. The recipe calls for lamb shoulder, but I almost always make chicken. Grill, broil, or saute the meat, depending on the cut of meat, time of year and/or personal inclination. One caveat: you can use chicken breasts for this, but chicken thighs are much, much tastier. 

Properly, this is wrapped in pita bread with garlic sauce and pickles and a little cabbage salad with slivered tomato and cucumber. It's just as good served alongside some rice pilaf, piled on the aforementioned Flaming Moe, or popped into a slow cooker for a buffet where it will make lots of people very happy. 

Hooray for Bollywood: Weeknight Beef Keema

 

What can I say? Food-wise we’ve been – well, not boring exactly, but certainly very routine lately. Lots of fast-and-easy weeknight favorites, lots of (gasp!) repetition, lots of things that one wouldn’t write home about (or read about, for that matter).  

Christmas, though. One of the great things about having a culinary student in the house is that everyone assumes Herself wants cookbooks for Christmas. They assume correctly. She’s amassing quite a nice little collection of cookbooks, particularly niche or one-topic ones that dive a little deeper into a single kind of cuisine. They also tend to inspire some more creative and in-depth cooking – Saturday food project, anyone?

During this year’s post-holiday sale shopping, Anna came across Bollywood Kitchen: Home-Cooked Indian Meals Paired with Unforgettable Bollywood Films. I’m a fan of Bollywood music so I’m really looking forward to following the film recommendations, but our collective imagination was immediately caught by the very first recipe. It claimed to be weeknight-friendly, the sort of thing your Indian-American mom might knock out on the Tuesday night without dirtying up every pan in the house (we’d make Indian a lot more often if we could get away from our habit of making 5 different dishes each time). We thought we’d give it a test run on a typical weeknight: a day when everyone works and John has an extracurricular activity, which makes the timing uncertain and practically guarantees that someone is driving somewhere at the exact time dinner is ready.

It did not disappoint. I was a little surprised that it contains beef, as most of the Indian people I know don’t eat beef (or are vegetarian) but the author chalks this up to American assimilation and says that it’s her mom’s most popular dish. I can see why! We adjusted the spice down a bit to accommodate John, who’s never really been exposed to spicy food and hasn’t developed a taste for it. Highly recommended for a weeknight when you want comfort food that isn’t squishy or bland. Don’t be daunted by the ingredient list; it’s mostly spices that you have on hand, and a little mise en place* will help make sure it all comes together without any stress on your part.

* Translation: measure everything out and have it ready to go before you start cooking. 

Adapted very slightly from Bollywood Kitchen: Home-Cooked IndianMeals Paired with Unforgettable Bollywood Films by Sri Rao.

Weeknight Beef Keema

2 lb ground beef
½ Tbsp turmeric
2 Tbsp canola oil
2 bay leaves
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 Tbsp garlic paste
2 Tbsp ginger paste
½ Tbsp Indian red chilli powder or cayenne (we used a teaspoon)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cloves (we used ½ tsp)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 medium tomato, finely chopped
2 tsp ground coriander
½ cup chopped cilantro

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the ground beef and sprinkle with the turmeric. Cook the meat 7-9 minutes, breaking it up as you go. Remove with a slotted spoon.

Wipe the pan clean, then heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the bay leaves and allow them to infuse the oil for about 15 seconds. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until golden brown.

Add the garlic and ginger and cook 1-2 minutes. Add the chilli powder, salt, cloves, and cinnamon and cook for another minute.

Stir in the tomato, then cover and simmer until the tomato has broken down, 5-7 minutes. The sauce should start to come together; the oil will start to separate and the sauce will pull away from the sides of the pan.

Stir the meat into the sauce and cook over medium heat for about 7 minutes. Add the coriander and cook another 15-20 minutes. The meat will look dry at this point.

Remove the bay leaves and add the cilantro. Adjust the salt and seasonings and/or add a squeeze of lemon.  Serve over rice. The recipe claims this is best made a day or two in advance so I’ll let you know if I make this and can resist eating it immediately.