Category Archives: Food

City Life, Cooking techniques, Food, Recipes

Distinctly un-springy

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Here’s to pantry staples. Last weekend we had a neighbor up for a drink, and shortly before he arrived I realized we’d all probably want dinner and I hadn’t grocery shopped in at least a week. I scoured the pantry and the freezer and was able to patch together a quick risotto, which I cooked while the guys enjoyed second gin-and-tonics. I hadn’t made risotto in a really long time, but I love having it in my arsenal. If you have never made it, it’s so worth giving it a try–once you’ve done it a few times you won’t need a recipe and you’ll be ready to make an emergency dinner suited to casual company with whatever you have on hand!

I’m piecing this recipe together from memory–any basic recipe will get you started, and the theories are really simple!

Anything-You-Have Risotto
Serves 3-4
1 cup arborio rice
1/4-1/3 cup dry vermouth or white wine (if you have white wine already open)
2-3 tablespoons butter
1 shallot, diced
Chicken stock (probably 3 cups or so; have at least 4 cups on hand.)
Whatever you want to put in your risotto–trimmed and cut-up asparagus, dried or fresh (sautéed) mushrooms, sausage, pancetta, etc.

In this case I was relying on pantry elements, so I used dried porcini mushrooms, which I soaked in boiling water for a little while, then used the soaking water (poured carefully to avoid grit from the bottom) to supplement my stock. I rinsed the soaked mushrooms a few times because this batch is annoying gritty. Before soaking them I crunched the bigger mushrooms up a little bit so the pieces were uniform in size, but I probably should have left them bigger.

I also took two sweet italian sausages out of their casings and browned them (making them into small bits) until they were 95% cooked, then set the sausage aside. (Most times I brown a slice or two of pancetta at this stage, if I don’t have sausage around.)

In the same pan where I’d browned the sausage, I melted the butter and cooked the shallot until it was soft and translucent. Medium heat, I’d guess. Scrape your spoon around to get up some of the nice browned sausage bits, if applicable.

Pour in your arborio and stir it around to combine with the butter and shallot.

Pour in the vermouth or white wine and let it cook off, adjusting the heat as needed. If you’re using mushrooms and have some soaking liquid, add that once the vermouth is cooked off. This is when you’ll really be able to scrape up browned sausage goodness; it will release almost as soon as the liquid hits it. The liquids will make lots of steam so that you can’t take any good photos. I also added in the soaked mushrooms.

Try blowing on the steam and moving really fast–ah, that’s a little better.

(Seriously, I can’t believe I’m once again apologizing for godawful photos, but…sorry. Sigh.)

Begin adding stock about 1/2 cup at a time (though I go faster; I’m lazy!), stirring frequently to avoid sticking. Keep adding stock as it cooks away, until the arborio is cooked through.

Towards the end, add in the cooked sausage, sautéed mushrooms, etc. If you want to add raw asparagus, that goes in a little earlier. Do not let it dry out, especially towards the end–add enough stock that the final risotto is creamy and has a bit of broth to it. Serve in heated pasta bowls, topped with a bit of butter and some parmesan cheese, if you have it around.

We had nice big salads (and watched The Office!) after the risotto. Yum. It’s definitely time to retire mushrooms and sausage for the summer, though, and turn my sights to asparagus.

City Life, Cooking techniques, Food, Recipes

Flank Hangar steak

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So I bought a packet of flank steak at TJ’s a couple weeks ago and through a variety of circumstances was forced to throw it away instead of cooking it. I tried to buy more and they were all out, so over the weekend (more than a week ago now!) I stopped at Savenor’s, the fancy butcher in Beacon Hill and Cambridge, and picked up some hangar steak. Their flank steak was packed in 2-pound chunks, which they didn’t want to cut down, and when I asked about hangar (having enjoyed is very much cooked in the french style at Les Halles over the years) the guy said it would sub in well. I…don’t think that’s entirely true? Or maybe it is but the Savenor’s meat is just so much better quality and…more meaty that I was thrown off? But more on that later.

The recipe in question is another one from Everyday Food, Flank Steak with Lime Marinade. The marinade is dead easy–I love recipes where i can just sort of chunk up the ginger instead of bothering to dice it tiny and evenly.

If this isn’t a summery group of ingredients, I don’t know what is:

I made a little less marinade than the recipe makes, since I had less meat. But in essence you juice a few limes and toss in diced ginger, red pepper flakes, some soy sauce and chopped scallions. Next time I will probably use garlic instead of scallions.

Put all that in a ziplock with your meat. Squish it around (seal it first!). Marinate for about an hour. Grill, rest, slice. So easy! Making the marinade takes about 5 minutes.

To go with the steak, we grilled asparagus. Clean the asparagus (snap off the woody ends; they snap right where they’re supposed to if you hold the end and the middle of the stalk and bend it), toss in salt and pepper and olive oil, grill to taste. Ben grilled it to his taste–it wasn’t quite charred enough for me. I just love asparagus. This was from New Jersey, and it was very tasty.

I also boiled/roasted a few red potatoes.

The meal was almost great, but not quite. The meat was a bit underdone, went back on the grill, and was still very rare for my taste. I think the hangar steak is also just too flavorful for this type of marinade–the meat and marinade didn’t work together as well as I’d hoped. Still, I want to keep trying these less-expensive beef cuts until I figure them out! (I do think I’d have been happier if it had been more medium-rare instead of rare. I microwaved leftovers at work the next day and they were delicious. Usually when I reheat non-braised meat it is overdone.)

Cooking techniques, Food, Recipes

Happy cabbage salad and crispy pork cutlets

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Ever since my weekend in Hanover and Tom’s lovely dinner I’ve been considering that slaw he made. On Tuesday I started sifting through Everyday Food’s quick recipe database looking for something incredibly fast and easy that would go well with cabbage. I settled on pork, and found this recipe for “Crispy breaded cutlets,” using panko breadcrumbs.

This was so, so easy. Instead of using an egg white to adhere the crumbs, you use dijon mustard, which flavors and moistens the pork in addition to helping the panko stick. I didn’t pound the cutlets quite thin enough, so there were some false starts getting them out of the oven, but overall this is something I’ll definitely do again.

Basically you pound boneless pork loin chops (I used butterflied boneless pork chops) to about 1/4 inch, rub each one with mustard, dredge them in panko you toasted with some oil, and then bake on a rack in the oven. Whee!

For the slaw, I made a dressing out of about 1/3 vegetable oil to 2/3 cider vinegar, with a healthy amount of brown sugar. I had about 2/3 of a cup of dressing for a huge bowl of cabbage, and I’d guess it had about 3+ tablespoons of brown sugar (plus pepper). I kept adjusting as I went so I don’t have exact measurements. You want a good balance between tangy and sweet; this seemed like a lot of vinegar but I kept adding more, dipping in a piece of cabbage to taste it, etc.

I just love to look at cabbage, don’t you?

I cut the halves lengthwise midway through, so I wouldn’t have huge long strips. Next time I’d make two cuts, I think–there were still some lengthy pieces of cabbage in there. I also wasn’t quite as strict about peeling off the outer leaves on the first half, so those were a little tough. Even if they look perfect and great, make sure to get those out leaves off!

I dressed the slaw before starting the pork, and let it sit for a while. Tom and I had learned a lesson about salting it too early, so I waited until before I served it to salt it, to keep it from getting too watery. The leftovers did let off a lot of juice and dressing but that was fine.

Really delicious. That pork was *tender* and had good flavor and that nice crispy crust. Ben hates slaw, so I cleverly called the slaw “cabbage salad”–tricky, no? He still doesn’t love cabbage, but after dinner he said “That was a success. We could have that again,” so…

Family, Food, Good stuff, Travel

TJ’s meal + a weekend trip

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Well. I inadvertently made a meal from all Trader Joe’s ingredients:

That’s a Harvest Grain mix (israeli couscous, some orzo, baby garbanzo beans, quinoa), mahi mahi marinated in garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes, and a bag of baby spinach.

Doesn’t that look promising? Just wait, in the finished photo it looks even better. Sadly, this product was a total bust–the couscous and orzo, as you’d imagine, cooked just fine in the 10 minutes instructed by the bag. Any longer and they’d have been mush. The dried baby garbanzo beans? Not so much. As a result the texture was upsetting.

The fish Ben grilled according to the package instructions–7 minutes/side–and it was perfect. Juicy and very flavorful, though the marinade was too salty. Still, Ben liked it, so that adds another fish to our list! And I love mahi mahi, so I was happy despite the high sodium content. As for the spinach, I just sautéed it quickly with garlic and olive oil. Yum.

That extremely healthy dinner (if only the pilaf-ish thing had been better!) came together in about 15 minutes. Long Live Trader Joe’s!

Over the weekend we were down in Rockland County for a family event, so we decided to make a weekend of it and visit my cousin at Bard College, see a concert, and spend the night. I was stunned by how cool the Bard Campus is–it’s got about 90 buildings, many of them darling quirky houses scattered around as dorms or faculty housing. I took tons of photos of the Blithewood Mansion and its gardens. We went to a good concert at the Gehry-designed performing arts center, then had dinner at the bistro at Terrapin, in Rhinecliff. Fun place in an old church.

We stayed up in Hudson, in a really cool house/B&B run by a very fun couple, The Inn at Hudson. (Read all about the house and the owners in this New York Times story; the guest room they show is the one we stayed in.) On Sunday morning one of the owners, Dini, showed us his video (as his Drag alter-ego, Musty Chiffon), “(I wanna be) Jackie Onassis.” It was a cover of the song, which his New Wave band first recorded in the early 80s. The whole thing was amazing and I still have the song stuck in my head. You can watch the video, too, if you want…

Photos from the weekend…
City Life, Farm Box, Food

Earth Day

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Happy Earth Day! Along with most of the northern hemisphere, I’ve tried to switch to reusable bags this year, and I won’t lie, I’m longing for the happy and practical (they roll up so small! they still go over your shoulder!) RuMe bags that Not Martha posted yesterday–she has ten sets to give away! Delight.com makes this brilliant Starter Kit that would make it easier for anyone to switch to reusable bags and bottles:

(photo: Delight.com)
I definitely need to make or get some produce bags like that.

The other bandwagon we’re jumping on this year is the CSA (community supported agriculture) weekly farm box. We joined the Stone Soup Farm CSA–the farm is in Belchertown, MA and this is their first year running a CSA. We have gotten several extremely entertaining and well-written newsletters so far, and when I checked out the About Us page it turns out the farm is run by a very young and idealistic crew. I’m excited to see what the summer brings–here’s the lettuce growing in the greenhouses right now:


(photo: Stone Soup Farm)

Yum.

Anyway, if you haven’t heard about CSAs, they are a program designed to help connect buyers with farmers so the farmers have some guaranteed income and the buyers know they’ll be getting a steady supply of local produce all summer, even if getting to the farmer’s market is inconvenient. I have been frustrated by how much of the produce at Whole Foods is trucked from California or is completely out of season stuff from South America, and I’m excited about challenging myself with the weekly box of whatever Stone Soup is harvesting. I’m planning to do at least a weekly post about what is in my box once it starts up in June. According to the farm:

“You can expect to see all of the following vegetables in your CSA share throughout the year: Arugala, Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Celery, Sweet Corn, Cucumber, Diakon, Edamame, Eggplant, Fennel, Garlic, Kale and Collards, Kohlrabi, Leeks, Lettuce, Melons, Mesclun Lettuce, Okra, Onions (Red, Yellow and Walla Walla), Parsnips, Peas, Peppers, Popcorn, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Rutabaga, Spinach, Summer Squash and Zucc., Sweet Potato, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Turnip, Winter Squash, As well as the following herbs: Basil, Cilantro, Chives, Dill, Hot Peppers, Rosemary, Mint, Oregano, Thyme, Parsley.”

Wow. If I get even half of those things there will be lots of experiments to conduct!

For more information about CSA and how to find a CSA in your area (shares are getting very booked up for this year, so act fast!) check out Local Harvest.

Stone Soup’s geese keeping watch over the farm back in early March:


(photo: Stone Soup Farm)

Family, Food, General, Life in the Big Woods, Travel

Bon Voyage, Tom!

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I spent this weekend back up in Hanover helping my brother Tom get ready to leave for a two-month trip through Europe to absorb great works of architecture. He’s a smart puppy who won a travel grant to fund this trip. Since graduating from Dartmouth last June he designed and built a new timber-framed sugarhouse for the Dartmouth Organic Farm, worked at various timber framing jobs, and worked as a cabinet maker. He’s also a great cook!

I got up to Hanover Friday evening (after my first solo highway drive longer than 15 or 20 minutes–whee!) Tom was getting ready to grill dinner for me and for the college’s current Artist in Residence. We enjoyed sirloin, grilled asparagus, pasta with pesto and a delicious cabbage slaw.

He says he made the slaw using vegetable oil and cider vinegar with quite a bit of sugar for the dressing. I will experiment, since he wasn’t very precise with quantities! We ate leftover steak and slaw in great sandwiches the next day.

Tom has been working on a gorgeous custom fly-tying desk for a couple months, using many of the techniques he learned in timber-framing. He finished it on Friday and on Saturday we went to the woodshop to attach the top to the base and do a couple other final tasks.

Hardware and two doors will be added after he gets back from Europe. Pretty impressive, huh?

We also picked up some great book deals at the Five Colleges Book Sale, hung out with lots of Tom’s friends, finished packing up his stuff and figured out what he needed for this trip, which starts in Istanbul and finishes in Helsinki in late June. He’s packing very light (annotated version here):

Finally, almost a month ago Tom stayed at our place while we were gone for the weekend. When we came back I found this lovely handmade cutting board waiting for me–I can’t bear to use it yet; it’s leaning up against the wall in the kitchen, looking pretty:

Good luck, Tom! Safe travels…

Food

Mindless meals

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There has not been a ton of cooking going on in the Girl Reporter household, I’m afraid. I did come home from my pottery class on Monday and found that Ben had grilled sausages to eat with couscous and green beans–very impressive. But he couldn’t find my camera so there is no photographic proof.

Here are two “agh, dinner?” meals we ate last week:

Sunday night, starving but unmotivated, a bit concerned about the bag of arugula lying listlessly in the produce drawer, I cooked up some Rising Moon ravioli (a mushroom flavored package, though they weren’t, very) and sautéed the arugula in olive oil and butter. This was an experiment, as I usually use it raw or wilted into pasta dishes, rather than sautéed, but it worked very nicely.

A few nights later, we needed something homey and I had some broccoflower (…what a name), also languishing in the produce drawer, so I made my first absorption pasta in months and it was divine. Ben declared it a Top 5 meal, and I must say the leftovers the next day made me happy for quite a long time.

I took the sausage out of its casing and browned it, removed it, then sautéed the broccoflower florets (cut up quite small) in a little oil and garlic, like I did the cauliflower for the pasta with cauliflower and walnuts. I forgot to hold the garlic back till the end, though, and instead put it in with the oil before the broccoflower. At the time I was mad because it seemed to be over-browning, since the broccoflower (oh my god, that name) took a while to cook, but the dish, in the end, had a nice smoky flavor and I don’t know which thing I burned contributed that, but it worked out nicely.

Meanwhile I cooked the pasta (risotto-style, people–link is above if you haven’t done this yet; it is luscious and so worth it), then stirred everything together and voila, I want more right this minute actually.

I am going to Hanover this weekend to help my brother get ready for his upcoming European Jaunt. Pictures to come, I’m sure! Have a great weekend!

Food

The power of bacon

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Last Tuesday we grilled burgers (well, Ben grilled), and I tried to recreate Ben’s favorite Big Nick’s burger for him. I always thought blue cheese, bacon and avocado on a large burger was several steps beyond overkill, but he loved that thing. Well, the blue cheese I had hanging around was funkier than even blue cheese should be, so I swapped in cheddar, and despite my misgivings it was fantastic. I must say, I seem to have a good feel for avocado ripeness!

Anyway, we had some bacon and half an avocado left over, in addition to FOUR ciabatta rolls (thanks, Whole Foods, for only have bagels and tiny french rolls available one at a time), so in addition to ciabatta rolls with peanut butter for breakfast last week, I had the remaining avocado with half the bacon on a roll for lunch Thursday, and was unspeakably happy. And then Friday I made, in essence, a tiny bacon butty, with the last roll, butter, and the remaining bacon. I know it’s obvious, but seriously, people, revisit those simple, simple classics sometimes. That was the best weekday breakfast I’ve had in months. Maybe years.

Good Bacon.
Butter.
Good bread.

(Bliss)

Cooking techniques, Food

Citrus parfaits for the weekend

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Last week Whole Foods had some sort of fancy citrus bonanza, and I thought I’d get my fill at the tail end of the season. I picked up a pomelo (it was the size of my head!), a honey mandarin, two of something that I think were tangelos and one other. I’m sorry, I should have written down the names–I’ll look for the receipt later. I set the pomelo aside for later* once I’d broken down the other fruit and found that I had plenty.

I supremed the citrus to use in a breakfast parfait on Saturday. It’s really easy and sort of therapeutic, and makes the fruit nice to eat, juicy, and pretty.

Cut the ends, skin and pith off the fruit:

Then (I’m sorry my photos didn’t come out) use a sharp thin knife to cut along the membrane on either side of each segment. The pieces come out naked and tidy unless you didn’t cut the ends off far enough (not that I’d know anything about that…).

I got a container of full-fat greek yogurt, put a little in each bowl, then a scoop of the mixed up sections of citrus and a drizzle of raw honey on the yogurt:

Once I’d assembled this I worried a bit that the citrus/dairy thing would be a problem but it was quite tasty. And I loved making the supremes; I will definitely do that for salads and things in the future.

*Major disappointment. After enjoying the lovely scent of the pomelo for a few days, I broke it open only to find the flesh flavorless and pretty dry. So sad. Still, it was so huge and fun!

Cooking techniques, Family, Food, Recipes

Christy’s stuffed peppers

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I previously wrote up my Mother in Law Christy’s meatloaf recipe, the one that opened my eyes to the power of a meatloaf sandwich. When we were on Long Island for Easter she taught me to make another easy weeknight entree (and one of Ben’s favorite meals ever), stuffed peppers, and I tried them out myself a week or two later. I’d never had a stuffed pepper before, so I don’t know if this is a typical recipe, but it is incredibly easy and SO tasty. I don’t even like peppers that much, but cooking the filling in them actually adds nice flavor, and I even ate most of the pepper with the filling! Ben likes the green ones; I prefer red or orange or yellow.

Christy’s Stuffed Peppers
(the recipe is pretty rough–just adjust everything to taste!)

For each pound of ground beef:
3 big or 4 small bell peppers
1 onion, chopped
1.5-2 cups cooked rice (I bought it for a fortune from the hot bar at Whole Foods but next time I’ll suck it up and cook it myself first… It would be a nice time saver to cook extra next time you’re making rice and use leftovers the next night!)
1 16 oz. can of tomato sauce (I used Muir Glen, and made sure it was not the kind with basil in it)
Grated cheese (Cheddar is good; I used a grated “mexican” blend from Trader Joe’s that I need to use up!)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Clean and core the peppers (I cut mine lengthwise but you can also just cut the top off and fill them like cups. I will do it that way next time. I overfilled one small and two big peppers and ate the bit of extra filling while they baked, because I was starving.)

Blanch the peppers in boiling salted water until they are tender but not soft. (A few minutes) Drain and set aside.

Sauté the onion until soft, then brown the beef.

When the beef is cooked, add in the tomato sauce and the rice and cook for 15 minutes or so, or until it tastes well blended.

Arrange the peppers on a baking sheet or in a casserole pan. Fill with the meat mixture, top with cheese, and bake for 15 or 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

The melted cheese looks so sad in these photos, I’m sorry!

Despite the simplicity of the recipe, these were incredibly flavorful and tasty. We ate leftovers for dinner a couple nights later and they were even better, though reheating was a bit tricky. I think if I knew I’d have leftovers I would leave the cheese off those when I was baking them, and then microwave them to heat the filling before adding the cheese and broiling them for a couple minutes.