Simmer once, Simmer twice, It's a night for cozy rice

Elise,

                Cold rain, 48 hours of it and another 48 predicted. Tis the season for gruel.

                I decided to make Sue’s lamb and rice casserole. Both you and Mom informed me that for this I’ll need leftover lamb, leftover lamb gravy and rice. I have rice.

                I needed to create a simulacrum of the other two. Brown some ground lamb, sweat some garlic and onions, well, shallots bc my onion had turned. Combine it with the rice and a few cups of that homemade chicken broth I have in my freezer from last week’s roast chicken. Toss in some rosemary bc I remember that part from Sue’s version and some fennel seeds bc that sounds good. Then let it simmer to reduce the liquid. It simmered while Riley had a brief elimination walk. The timing was perfect.

 

                It wasn’t Sue’s casserole, but it was cozy, warm and soft on a night that is cold enough for all the dogs to need blankets. 

 

                Love, Margaret

Mea(t) Culpa

Dear Marg,

Meatless Monday, less meat, more whole grains and beans, better for your body, better for the planet - everyone knows the litany. Granted, not everyone cleaves to it, or even wishes they cleaved to it. But on some level I buy it. I get that (in general and excepting athletic animals raised strictly on pasture that is too steep and rocky to support anything with less than four legs) meat production requires more resources than plant production. And I believe that variety is the spice of life and moderation in all things is best and countless other aphorisms that seem inane only bc we've heard them so often that we've blocked out the fact that the reason we've heard them so often is bc they are true.

All of which is a very long winded way of explaining my forays into vegetarian cooking. Trouble is, I suck at it. I don't have the instinctive feel for how to make vegetarian meals that I have for meat based meals. I understand braising and browning, how long it takes, what the meat should look like, how it should sound when it's almost done, and how it should smell. I've learned over the years which spices go with pork and which with lamb (curry or rosemary, for example, but not both). But put me in front of a CSA box and I'm stumped.

In my mental cookbook, vegetables get steamed, sauteed or roasted. Usually alone, sometimes with a close friend and some spices. And almost always as an accompaniment to meat. Excursions outside of this realm usually result in what Amos refers to as Vegetable Swamp. Healthy, dammit, but no one's arguing over the leftovers. There are always leftovers.

Last Meatless Monday witnessed another attempt, and shockingly, it was really good. Even the leftovers didn't last long.

I started with small green and brown lentils. I didn't have enough of either so I mixed them. Same size, same bean, same, same. I'm not so sure. One of the things that was great about this dish was that the lentils didn't cook into a homogenous mass. I'm wondering if one of the varieties took longer to cook than the other and so retained it's shape.

Sauteed some onions, garlic and fresh ginger. Added curry spices, then lentils, coconut milk and water, cooked a while, then added chopped sweet potatoes and right before lentils were done, chopped  zucchini.

Served it on a bed of rice topped with chopped fresh kale, then lentils and then fresh corn (leftover from a traveling neighbor's CSA box).

It was a tasty Monday. Today is Sunday and I'm making braised pork shoulder. Mea culpa.

Love,

Elise

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• olive oil
• 1 T finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 t ground cumin
• 1/2 t ground coriander
• 1 t turmeric
• 1 t salt
• about 1/2 of a  fresh serrano chile, finely chopped, no seeds or white parts
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups dried lentils
• 1 (14-oz) can unsweetened coconut milk
• 2 medium zucchini cut into 1/2-inch chunks
• 1 large sweet potato cut into 1/2 inch chunks

Saute the onion in the OO until soft. Add garlic, chili pepper and spices and cook a minute or so until fragrant. Add lentils, water and coconut milk. Cook about 5 minutes and then add sweet potato. Cook another 15 minutes and add zucchini. Cook another 5-7 minutes until zucchini is done and keep your fingers crossed that the lentils and sweet potatoes are on somewhat of the same time schedule.

Serve over brown rice with some finely chopped kale on top of it. Top dish with leftover corn if you have any laying about.

Soup's On

Dear Marg,

It's soup time. Actually it's that interesting time of year when the weather demands you have chilled cucumber soup one day and steaming hot roasted tomato soup the next.

Cucumber soup with yogurt and dill

Cucumbers, yogurt and dill, S&P, whir it all up in the dangerous device of your choice.

Last winter when Justin came to stay he made his famous Oscar's tomato sauce for our Oscar party. I promise this isn't a tangent. The sauce involves cans and cans of tomatoes, sticks of butter and hours of simmering. It is delicious and definitely a member of the 1%. 

Recently, I found a container of tomato soup in the freezer. Oh joy, homemade tomato soup, I thought as I heated it up. I'll bet you can tell where this is going...

As I finished a large, delicious bowl of soup I tried to remember when I had made it, and what recipe I had used so I could make it again. I drew a blank. I drew another blank. I remembered the Oscar party.

Now that was some soup!

Justin's Tomato Sauce Soup

Here's Justin's recipe, in his own words:

Good day, Elise,

That sounds delicious! My secret isn't such a secret but sometimes I do vary and add to the simplest of Tomato Sauces.

Marcella Hazan wrote what I call Italy's Joy of Cooking, and I discovered the recipe in her cookbook Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (you probably have this book or know much more about her than I do ;-)

The title of the recipe is: Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

It is the butter that gives the sauce its richness and it's so worth it.

I make a whole huge pot of it and freeze the leftovers for future meals.

Ingredients: 

2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes, prepared as described on page 151 in cookbook, or 2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

5 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half

Salt

1 to 1&1/2 pounds pasta

Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for the table

quoting the recipe here: This is an unsurpassed sauce for Potato Gnocchi, but it is also delicious with factory-made pasta in such shapes as spaghetti, penne, or gigatoni. Serve with grated parmesan.

Put either the prepared fresh tomatoes or the canned in a saucepan, add the butter, onion, and salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow, but steady simmer for 45 minutes, or until the fat floats free from the tomato. Stir from time to time, mashing any large piece of tomato in the pan with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and correct for salt. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta.

sacrilegious or not? Here's my added tinkering . . . sometimes I will add a teaspoon or more of sugar, or not, depending on the taste and the sweetness the onion adds. Some tomatoes are better than others too. I also take the onion out and then food process the sauce in batches for a smooth consistency, something I prefer, and it's not necessary. This sauce can be saved and used as a base for other pasta sauces you want to create. Saute onions, carrots, celery in olive oil (garlic too if you want), I also add a little bit of balsamic vinegar to the vegetables . . . add the saved sauce to this when vegetables are to your liking. cook crumbled Italian sausage or any meat, ground beef, then cook the vegetables you want in the pan drippings (having taken cooked meat out first) . . . when veggies are done, add back the meat and pour cooked sauce in that for a heartier meal . . . 

The simplest of sauce . . . it really does have rich, buttery-good, flavor.

love,

Justin

Turns out there a lot of things you can't make chicken salad from

You can't make chicken salad from chicken shit

Elise,

                It’s summer, all I eat are whole meal salads and the foundation of any whole meal salad repertoire is chicken salad. Myriad variations on chicken, some additions and a dressing.

                Browsing food blogs and cooking sites, I cut and paste nearly every chicken salad recipe I come across. Or every one that doesn’t ask for miracle whip, cans of sweetened fruit or tomatillos. Tomatillos are everywhere this time of year and my one experiment with them years ago has turned me off them forever. I don’t recall exactly what went wrong, but like any serious trauma, I instinctively avoid the culprit.

                This is my week of chicken salads.

                Monday-   Chicken Club Salad from Martha Stewart.  This was OK, but not repeatable. Nancy Silverton in Twist of the Wrist has a chicken salad with avocado and bacon that is far superior. http://www.marthastewart.com/313659/chicken-club-salad?search_key=chicken%20salad

 

                Tuesday- Chicken and Chutney salad. Also from Martha and also ok but not repeatable. Any curried chicken salad is going to be nearly as easy and much more tasty. To be fair, I used my home made kefir instead of the sour cream, and that probably hurt.  http://www.marthastewart.com/338188/chutney-chicken-salad?search_key=chicken%20salad

                Wednesday- Chicken, Chick Pea and Pesto salad. Yuck. The flavors and textures work at cross purposes and the result resembles something that might have been served at the Eco-House at some small, liberal arts college, having been prepared by a freshman from Larchmont who was so distracted by his glorious new tie dye and the pain in his recently pierced and infected ear lobe, that he failed to notice that these ingredients are meant for three separate dishes.  I managed to finish one small bowl and then rinsed the pesto off, fed the chicken to the dogs, and discarded the rest.  http://www.marthastewart.com/314419/chicken-chickpea-and-pesto-salad?search_key=chicken%20salad

                Thursday- Asian Chicken Salad with Wasabi Dressing. I couldn’t eat it. I tasted the dressing before finishing the salad and threw it all away. This could be the stuff you dip your finger in and then offer to your child in an attempt to dissuade him from biting. http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/asian-chicken-salad-with-wasabi-dressing

                Friday- Curried Smoked Chicken Salad with Wild Rice. Discouraged by my week of experimenting, I returned to an old fave. I have made this a number of times and here are my adaptations. Short grain brown rice instead of wild rice. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of smoked chicken, more chutney, more raisins and about half the oil. Now that I am trying to eat whole grains a few times a week, this one is back in the rotation and I couldn’t be happier. It is the kind of thing I can keep eating long after I am technically full. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Curried-Smoked-Chicken-and-Wild-Rice-Salad-12041

                Saturday- Larb Chicken Salad. Found on Epicurious, I altered the recipe somewhat, doubled it and served it to friends. It was a hit. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Larb-Chicken-Salad-5680

                Sunday- Hamburgers. On the seventh day, they rested.

Larb Chicken salad

Yield: Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 1/3  cup fresh lime juice
• ½ cup fish sauce (nam pla)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 TB  chili-garlic sauce

• 3 pounds ground chicken and or turkey
• 1 ½  cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1 cup thinly sliced shallots
• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced Thai chilies or serrano chilies
• 1cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1cup chopped fresh mint leaves

• Mixed greens, Asian greens or baby cooking greens
• Olive oil

Preparation

Whisk first 4 ingredients in medium bowl to blend; reserve sauce.

Cook the ground chicken over medium high heat until cooked through, breaking up meat with spoon. Add green onions, shallots and chili pepper. Stir until vegetables are tender and most of liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in sauce. 

Right before serving, stir in the cilantro and mint.

Toss the greens with a good dousing of olive oil, enough to well coat the leaves, and then toss these greens into the chicken.