Category Archives: Family

Cooking techniques, Family, Food, Home

Thanksgiving (late)

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I’m trying to play catch up a bit… I’m currently in Paris, where it is 1 a.m. Ben is joining me for the weekend tomorrow, and I’ve taken loads of photos, as one does, but I also have a pre-trip backlog. Namely Thanksgiving, which I did almost literally on the fly between trips. I had never roasted a turkey. The one time I roasted a chicken it was a disaster. But off we went!

I went to London the Saturday night before Thanksgiving, worked Monday-Wednesday, then flew back Wednesday afternoon. I got in around 7, we picked my brother Tom up from the airport, and headed home. Ben’s mom and brother joined us for a pasta dinner shortly after we got back (Ben, bless him, cooked), and I trotted off to bed soon after that.

Ben had done the shopping, using lists I’d pulled together on the fly from London. Naturally I’d forgotten lots of things since I wasn’t actually looking at recipes or, you know, spending more than 3 minutes thinking through what I needed to make Thanksgiving dinner. I did not discover any of the missing items until Thursday morning, when it was too late to do much about them (more on that in a moment).

Wednesday night after I went to bed, Ben and his mom made chocolate cream pie. In the morning, Ben made pumpkin pie, and we encountered some first-time-use glitches with the oven, so it took about two hours to get it cooked. Just as I started panicking, though, the oven fixed itself and behaved nicely while I baked the turkey. Meanwhile I realized I was missing shallots (for the beans), parsley (for the stuffing, oh well), celery (also for the stuffing), carrots (for stock and around the turkey), and, for the stuffing, of course….Bread. I meant to get a bag of those croutons that are already all dried out, because this was The Thanksgiving For Shortcuts.

Hmm.

What can you do at 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving? No grocery stores were open. Eventually Tom went to 7-11 and purchased two snack containers of baby carrots and celery, and a loaf of Pepperidge Farm white bread. He cut that up into small pieces and I toasted it as hard as I could without browning it. Meanwhile I prepped the lovely turkey, a little 13-pounder, that we’d gotten from Trader Joe’s. He was pre-brined, so I just had to remove the giblets, etc., give him a nice butter/salt/pepper massage, and slide him into the oven (breast down to start, per Bittman).

I started a stock that never came to anything, and over the course of the morning/afternoon I made the stuffing (dressing, I guess, since I cook it out of the bird), cranberry sauce, and Ben and Tom made a hectare of mashed potatoes. Tom blanched beans, which he later dressed with lemon and olive oil, since we didn’t have shallots. I nearly forgot to make the cauliflower soup that I wanted to start with, but I did that right before we ate. The brined turkey gave of lots of nice drippings and Bittman has you put veggies and broth in the pan, so there was plenty of juice. I used his method, which involves boiling down the drippings and adding cornstarch (dissolved in water) to thicken if needed. This had the benefit of being simpler than a roux, with fewer lumps, and also being gluten-free, so Christy could eat it. She said she hadn’t had gravy in years!

The feast:

First of all, Mr. Turkey. He was fantastic!! Combined with the brine, Bittman’s Start Breast Down and Flip method worked great (he says this maxes out around 10 pounds, but the guys managed to flip our 13-pounder, though I was not around when they did it so who knows…) and the white meat was very juicy. Hurray!

Before the turkey, though, we had soup:

Then the good stuff:

Followed (many hours later) by pies, courtesy of Ben!

It was the last meal at our patched together little table/kitchen table combo:

Because the next day our long back-ordered table came in, and the guys brought it home!

Cooking techniques, Family, Food

Simple good things

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Last weekend my mom was in town for a visit, and on Friday night I came home and she had cooked a ton of food—the house smelled amazing! I can’t tell you how luxurious it was to come home and have dinner already almost done. She cooked loads of gorgeous yellow beets, green beans with shallots, roasted potatoes, delicata squash and sautéed chicken. We were set up with enough leftover that I didn’t have to cook anything from scratch all week.

The happy scene in the kitchen:

Beets are just so jewel-like. These were roasted and peeled, then sliced and dressed with a simple dressing to accompany a lovely arugula salad with goat cheese and walnuts.

Autumn colors! Orange beets, yellow squash.

Delicata are so delicious–roasted cut side down, the edges caramelize. We serve them with butter, salt and pepper, and they are creamy and sweet.

It sounds ridiculous, but I avoid cooking chicken; it makes me feel insecure. I have had fairly successful experiences so far, but I hate pounding the breasts flat, and I’m paranoid about overcooking. My mom cooked chicken on the stove to demonstrate how simple it is (this really does seem silly-simple, but oh well!).

After cleaning and pounding the breasts to an even thickness, pat them dry and rub them with olive oil, salt and pepper:

Get a heavy pan good and hot, then place the chicken in:

After a couple minutes flip the chicken, admire its lovely golden crust, then COVER while it finishes cooking. This is the step I didn’t think of, so the chicken tended to start burning before cooking through. This keeps it very, very juicy.

Edited to add better instructions from Mom: “Cook the first side 3-4 minutes until a nice crust forms (don’t move it or it won’t); cover and cook 2-3 minutes. Check for done-ness by touching the meat; soft and squishy means it’s still raw, springy means done, and firm means over-done. All meat continues cooking once it’s off the heat and it needs to rest a few minutes to resorb its juices before you eat it.

Easy! Here is our delicious dinner:

As for the leftovers, we ate some over the weekend, and I used half of the remaining chicken in an absorption pasta with some of the arugula tossed in at the last minute:

The other half I added to pasta with tomato sauce for a very last-minute dinner with a friend from B’s b-school class last night.

Family, Food, Travel

Oregon trip: Dad’s birthday dinner

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This is a short one–a simple delicious meal, and only a couple pics. But first, flip on over (in a new window!) to Germi’s great Domino garden blog, where she featured Mom’s garden the other day! In honor of Mom’s star turn, here is a photo of Mom (artfully turned away from the camera) in her kitchen:

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The kitchen isn’t huge but it’s an efficient layout. They re-did the counters, added a new little window (not shown here) and replaced the appliances earlier this year, and Mom is very fond of her new CaesarStone counters. She says you could spill wine on them and leave it overnight—though she would never, because she’s incredibly tidy—and it wouldn’t leave a mark! We are starting to think about our kitchen renovation, and I’m going to check out CaesarStone myself sometime soon. I liked the feel of it at home.

Ahem. Anyway, Dad doesn’t get as much play on the blog as Mom does, even though he’s an avid blog-reader and big food lover! Maybe this winter he can write a guest post about his famous cassoulet, which he makes about once a year over the course of several days. His birthday was the day I was leaving, and my flight was in the evening so we had a very early dinner to celebrate before we headed to the airport.

For dinner we had more beans from the garden, again prepared with Mom’s homemade lemon confit:

bean

Plus lovely New York steaks with grilled onions and roasted potatoes. Happy Birthday, Dad!

steak

Yum! It was a lovely night out on the deck, and it was brutal to eat a little too quickly and leave, especially since I was in for a red-eye flight in a middle seat. Would you want to stop sitting here with your delightful parents and a glass of wine?

To be fair, the short flight to SF was comfortable and featured a truly stunning sunset. And then I was able to spend 45 minutes in the airport with my Maid of Honor and her fiancé, who were on their way TO Eugene. That was where the fun ended, though, because the red-eye was 100% full, and I was indeed squished between two big guys the entire way.

Here’s that amazing sunset, though–I think what looks like the ocean is actual a sea of clouds. We were just outside Eugene at that point.

sun

sun

Cooking techniques, Family, Food, Recipes, Travel

Oregon trip: Mirza

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Mirza. Mirza is a wonderful, wonderful thing, very much one of my Top Five foods. It is awful-looking, a brownish mush of eggplant, tomato and egg, but the smoky, garlicky flavor is divine. My Mom’s friend Linda (another wonderful cook) is married to a Persian man and learned to cook all sorts of wonderful food from her Mother-in-Law. We have been eating mirza since I was a kid, and I crave it at random intervals. Sadly Mom refuses to make unless it is eggplant and tomato season. Ah, seasonality.

We made it as part of our Tapas dinner, though, and I think it was one of the best batches we ever made! I forgot to take pictures until most of the way through, so bear with me.

First, take your eggplant, a nice big one or two small ones, and grill it whole over lowish heat until it the sides collapse if you poke them (carefully) with your finger. Do not puncture the skin! Once the eggplant is all charred and soft, put it in a covered bowl or something to sit and think about what it’s done while you prep everything else. Seed and chop three or four nice ripe roma tomatoes, and mince a LOT of garlic, 6-8 cloves at least. Then gingerly peel the eggplant, making sure you catch all the nice juices in the bowl, and chop up the flesh. Leave all the seeds and stuff. Sauté the garlic in a good amount of olive oil until it is soft, then add in the eggplant and cook until you break it down a bit and it isn’t in chunks. Add in the tomato and cook until soft. In a glass, scramble up one egg. Next, make a hole in the middle:

irza

And pour the egg into it. Scramble it a bit:

mirza

mirza

And then stir it through the eggplant mixture and get it all nicely cooked so there aren’t bits of raw white:

mirza

Not too pretty, eh? But oooooh man. Usually we eat it piping hot with hot pita triangles, but this time we had it with grilled bread (brushed with oil and rubbed with garlic before grilling) and that was even better. Everything was smoky and garlicky and fantastic.

bread

I made it again the other night, to make sure I remembered the steps (I actually had to call mom to check how many tomatoes) and it wasn’t quite as good. We have a gas grill, while Mom and Dad use real-wood charcoal. Can’t beat the flavor, but mine was still pretty good and it got better the next day.

Cooking techniques, Family, Food, Travel

Oregon trip: “Tapas” dinner on the patio

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Mom and I discussed a bunch of favorite foods to try to figure out what to cook for my second-to-last night home, and we realized that we could just make a bunch of appetizer type things and skip the main course altogether. Delightful!

First, a glamour shot of the Sungold cherry tomatoes I keep talking about, and which we ate by the bucket full all week:
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Now. The menu for the evening:
-White beans with sausage, red onion and tomato
-Mirza (Persian eggplant dip and one of my all-time favorite foods)
-Grilled baby artichokes
-Prosciutto-wrapped grilled figs
-Grilled bread

OK, now I’m starving thinking about it.

I’ll follow up with a mirza post since it needs its own entry. It is simple but divine. And my mom made the white beans while I wasn’t paying attention, so I’d just be guessing if I made up instructions for that (though it was very tasty). But the grilled artichokes I carefully paid attention to, and the grilled figs are so beyond simple and SO delicious….

Artichokes. My mom buys bags of baby artichokes from Trader Joe’s because her friendly Farmer’s Market artichoke man has stopped showing up. I think we started with four pounds. That sounds insane, but we wanted leftovers and as you’ll see you throw away (compost, in our case) a LOT of trimmings.

Sadly I forgot to take photos until I was trimming the last few, so I don’t have a whole one to show here. But pretend you have seen the whole baby artichoke.

Trim it down to the tender leaves, cut the top third off, leaving the bases of the leaves, then use a paring knife to clean the bottom and stem, then cut each one in half (place in a bowl of cold water with the juice of a lemon while you keep trimming the rest:
art

This takes quite a while. Once you’ve done all trillion of them, admire the giant tub of leaves and trimming that your compost heap is about to enjoy, and marvel at the tiny bowl of water and artichokes that you are left with:
arti

Despite the lemon juice in the water, the artichokes may have discolored a little along the cut edges (you’re helping slow that down by putting them in water)–do not panic. Put them in a big pan with a couple whole cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed, cover them with water (or close to cover), and bring to a simmer. Cook until they are tender but not too soft:
artic

It’s like magic! The discoloration is gone! Eat one out of the strainer to celebrate. Now coat them in olive oil:
artich

Grill in a grill pan to prevent losing them into the fire. They’re already cooked, so you’re just adding that nice charred look and flavor. Salt and pepper. I like to hit them with a squeeze of lemon juice when they’re done. Now you can start sneaking them out of the bowl while you continue getting dinner on. (Leftovers should be added to pizza, or pasta, or sandwiches, or eaten cold out of the fridge.)

Delicious!
yum

Ok, the other fun grilled thing that night–I posted one photo already, but this is an appetizer my mom has been making for years, and it could not be easier.

pro

[If you’re using bamboo skewers, soak them in water for a couple hours before assembly!]
A note on figs: They have to be ripe ripe ripe for this to be as amazing as it can be. We had lovely ripe figs, and actually some were just ripe while others were *really* ripe:
fig

I have to say, though, I could barely tell them apart when they were cooked. That slightly sketchy-looking one might have been a tad more tender; it was certainly way juicier raw!
Cut slices of prosciutto in half the long way, so you have two strips from each slice. Wind one strip around each halved fig, and string a couple on each skewer. Brush with olive oil and grill.
mmm

mg

Devour while moaning incoherently.

Family, Food, Travel

Oregon trip: Tomato Salad food porn

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[Oops, one more entry before those artichokes…]

We took a trip up to Portland while I was home for a family birthday celebration—my Dad, cousin and grandmother are also August birthdays, along with me and my brother (who wasn’t there). Once again I was a surprise attendee, which was fun. My mom made amazingly gorgeous tomato salads in two flavors.

1. Greek: Heirloom and cherry tomatoes, feta, kalamata olives, red pepper, red onion, basil, cucumber, dressing.
ts ts

2. Plain, for the keep-it-simple crowd: Heirloom and cherry tomatoes, feta, basil, dressing.
ts2 ts2

I just thought they were so beautiful–like platters of jewels. I hate the heat, but I do dearly love summer for the vegetables… And Oregon is a lovely place to spend it. Here are the views from the car…

…on the way to Portland:
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…and on the way home:
home

Family, Food, Travel

Oregon trip: Sausage and peppers

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My dad was returning from a 10-day camping/fishing trip with a conference in the middle, and we didn’t know what time he’d get home. Mom and I made a fun grilled meal that would hold up or reheat well once he did arrive. (He didn’t know I was coming home! It was really fun to open the door for him.)

At the farmer’s market, Mom had picked up multicolored Italian peppers, like bell peppers but long and pointy and sweeter.

We cut them into strips, cut up a bunch of onions, and embarked on a grilling adventure. Neither of us usually does the grilling, and in fact my dad is a total master of the chimney starter, coal management, etc. We had a little bit of trouble getting the coals going but eventually figured it out.

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Mom also roasted a pan of chioggia beets so I could see how easy it is to do. It really is simple. She made a marinade of (I think) orange juice, thyme, oil, salt and pepper (Mom, what else was in there?), roasted the beets until tender (at what temp!?), let them cool enough that she could put on latex gloves and peel them, then sliced them and dressed them with vinaigrette. (Clearly I didn’t pay as close of attention to the technique as I should have…) We ate them for the rest of the week, with everything. And chioggias are SO pretty with their pale pink circles…

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It was very summery, especially after we added a handful of the Sungolds from the garden, dressed in a light vinaigrette with some basil.

dinner

Mmmm.

By the way, in case you weren’t already jealous of how my parents eat ALL THE TIME, check out what greeted me when I came downstairs to eat some lunch. My mom had said she’d toast some bread for me.
panini
Panini! With perfect hatch marks and fresh tomatoes! (Um, there were a lot of ripe tomatoes. We ate them at almost every meal. And they’re like candy, so you never get sick of them.) Double-Mmm.

Next up: A pseudo-Tapas meal, with grilled artichokes (for Germi!)

Family, Food, Home, Travel

High Summer in the Great Northwest

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So I spent almost a week visiting my parents in Oregon… First of all, people who haven’t been there tend to think of the entire Pacific Northwest as a rainy, foggy bog. I’m from Eugene, which is smack in the middle of the Willamette Valley (pinot noir country), and we are actually protected from Seattle-style weather by the coast range. The winter is wet, sure, but I think it’s the same number of grey days as we get out here on the East Coast, but without the sleet and ice. And in the summer…Oh, the summer. Normal summers are almost completely dry, June through October hot and sunny with no humidity. Usually it’s in the 80s during the day (at the height of summer, though there are heat waves) and then drops to the 50s at night. Without humidity there aren’t bugs unless you’re near a river or swamp. At my parents’ house, that means we can eat on the patio and not swat a single mosquito away.

Here is a view of the Valley as I flew into Eugene:

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I took a series of photos of the Cascade foothills (the Coburg Hills) dropping abruptly into the valley, posted at Flickr.

I had gotten up at 4:15 for a 6:50 flight, then ended up bumped to an 8 something flight, then my flight from Denver was delayed because the computer on the plane couldn’t tell that the door was closed. So I got in about 4 hours late, and was quite low-energy. My mom had rented Mostly Martha, the wonderful german film that was remade as No Reservations, and we made nice big salads with tuna for dinner to eat while watching it.

Trimmings:
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Kalamata olives, Sungold cherry tomatoes from the garden, red onion, red pepper, basil from the garden, feta.

All mixed together, with the tuna (the wonderful spanish kind from an oval red and yellow tin, packed in olive oil):
sala

Bad photo of my salad (left) and my mom’s (right)–she doesn’t snack between meals!
a

BTW, I haven’t seen No Reservations, but Mostly Martha was really, really good. Very quiet and low-key, but all excellent actors and a really beautiful food movie.

Family, Food, Home

Teaser

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I have to upload tons of photos and write up tons of dinners, but here’s a teaser to hold you until I’m back in Boston tomorrow. (Red-eye tonight, and I have a middle seat. PLEASE DEAR GOD let me get another seat on this supposedly-packed flight.

Anyway.

One of the many things we ate last night:

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Yes, that is a fig wrapped in prosciutto and grilled. Yep. Is that food porn or what??

Family, Food

Cooking with Mom, Part 3

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In the interest of posting something about food, one more meal from the visit with my parents last month!

The last night before my mom and dad left, we made another real B_______-style dinner, grilled pepper-steaks with potato salad and green beans. Tom made this warm potato salad from Chocolate and Zucchini, though we improvised a bit with which vinegars we used, pancetta instead of ham, etc. There are hazelnuts in the salad, which adds great crunch and unexpected flavor. I’m suddenly a fan of this type of warm potato salad–I don’t like american-style ones, they’re too gloppy for me (though my aunt Chris made a great one for the graduation party, which I will be trying soon!). But this is mayo-free and perfect with summer grilled dinners.

salad

mmm.

Mom made a favorite green bean recipe, which I’m trying to get and will edit into the post later. She sautéed shallots and…mixed them with barely-steamed beans. I’m sure there’s more to it but I wasn’t focused! *** See below for Mom’s bean tips*** We also caramelized onions for the steaks. Delicious!

inner

plate

***Edited to add green bean tips from Mom:
“You’ve got the green beans; it was just shallot & beans. The only difference is I am boiling not steaming the beans these days.

I heat a large pot of water to boiling. Salt it heavily so it tastes salty. Add beans and cook until barely done – or the way you like them. If you are going to shock them, take them out the way you like them. If you aren’t going to shock them, take them out sooner because they will keep cooking. Drain and dry; I lay mine out on a kitchen towel while I sautée the shallots. Slowly sautée 1 shallot per pound of beans (that’s a WAG because shallots are all different sizes) in a T or two of olive oil. They’ll burn if you hurry them and you’ve got to taste them to know when they are really done. When they are done, add your dry beans and toss to reheat to room temp. Salt & pepper to taste. You can substitute garlic for shallots but it’s not as subtle.

Here’s my current take on beans. I toss the great beans from the Farmers Market with a little Agrumato Lemon oil (worth every penny) and some slivers of preserved lemon and lots of salt. I cannot stop eating these beans. Of course I am spoiled by having both Agrumato oil and preserved lemon but you can add some lemon zest instead.”

Thanks Mom!!