Archive for April, 2009
Remember that lamb I did in the slow cooker? I put the last chunk in a yogurt container and poured all the lovely juices over top, and stuck it in the fridge. (Among a literal forest of yogurt containers filled with leftover lentils and sourdough starter.)
It gelled, as meaty juices do, with all the fat evenly hardened on the surface. I plucked it off, chopped the meat and squished the lot into a small baking dish, then sprinkled it with frozen peas (they’ll cook when I bake the pie). This all occurred yesterday, as I was making the lentil-sweet potato thing; while I was at it I boiled up some surplus diced sweet potato, mashed it and spread it over the meat and peas. It felt a little evil-genius, only in a good way. Two dinners in one go.
So tonight all that needed to be done was to pop it in the oven to warm through. I have to admit, it was a little runny. I should have sprinkled the lamb chunks with some flour. But a slotted spoon solved that problem, and it was nonetheless delicious.
W and I spent the time we might have otherwise spent cooking (he’s quite the keener in the kitchen) planting tomato, rosemary and basil seeds to get a head start on our garden. So now all our prime eating space is taken up by a) the old computer (don’t ask), and b) a miniature potted garden. Or more accurately, a bunch of tubs of dirt with Popsicle sticks stuck in, which may or may not actually sprout into anything.
One Year Ago: Roast Ham, Baked Mac & Cheese, Bean Salad, Orange Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Roasted Asparagus, and Strawberry Shortcakes
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April 09 2009 | lamb | 12 Comments »
I woke up this morning craving -nay, requiring- vegetables. Since the back yard is still half covered with thick, dingy ice floes I’m not quite in full-on salad mode. (At this point I’m not fully convinced spring is going to actually come – I’ll believe it when I see something green poking through.) My brain was trying to push me toward butter chicken, so I compromised with this veggie-based curry of sorts. I’ve seen a lot of curried sweet potato-legume (lentil, black & kidney bean) concoctions in the past month, so I may as well go ahead and make one and get it out of my system. This one came from the New York Times, by way of SmittenKitchen.
I meant to make naan, but my timing was way off. (Timing is not my forte. It’s particularly apparent at Thanksgiving and other multi-course meal events where there are a lot of witnesses.) I’m kind of glad I didn’t – had I made it I would have eaten three easily, and then sat around all night digesting dough. When I abandoned the naan idea, I put on a pot of basmati rice instead. (Perhaps naan tomorrow – something will need to go with the surplus of lentils.)
Really, there’s a serious lot of leftovers. 1 1/2 cups of dry lentils plus 2 pounds of sweet potato made a massive pot. Lunch is taken care of for a week, anyway. To go with I roasted some cauliflower – tossed around in a bit of oil and roasted at 400F for about 15 minutes. I have fulfilled my vegetable quota (for once). And I feel good for having eaten it all. (If I’d only stop eating these mini eggs.)
Curried Lentils With Sweet Potatoes and Swiss Chard
adapted from the New York Times, by way of SmittenKitchen. Bump up the curry powder if you like things spicier.
1-2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbsp. grated ginger
1 1/2 tsp. garam masala
1 1/2 tsp. curry powder
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
4 to 5 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
1 1/2 cups dried lentils
1 bay leaf
1 bunch Swiss chard, center ribs removed, leaves thinly sliced
1 tsp. salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 cup chopped almonds (tamari almonds, if you can find them), for garnish (optional)
In large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and saute until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, garam masala, curry powder and jalapeno. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
Stir in 4 cups broth, sweet potatoes, lentils and bay leaf. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. (If the mixture seems dry, add more stock as needed.) Stir in the chard and salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the chard is cooked, another 10 minutes.
Stir in cilantro and lime juice and serve immediately, plain or over rice, garnished with almonds.
Serves 6 (or so).
One Year Ago: Thai Coconut Soup with Lemongrass and Chicken/Shrimp, Pork Potstickers, Curried Peanut Orange Shrimp and Green Tea Crème Brulée
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April 08 2009 | beans and stews & braises and vegetarian | 14 Comments »
Yes, I did. I went ahead and made Crème Brulégg just because I saw it on foodgawker and thought it was cool. How could I not? “If your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?” comes to mind. It’s just about as sweet as it sounds. (Crème Brulée with a Cadbury’s Easter Creme Egg nestled inside before baking.) Maybe even more.
But it is fun. If you’re having folks over for dinner, it makes a good conversation piece. Or you could buy a whole bunch of Easter Creme Eggs and melt them down into fondue. Maybe do that the week after Easter, when they are all 75% off, and don’t tell anyone what you did.
For actual dinner – I’m not sure why, but after hardly any sleep, three coffees and the better part of a Crème Brulégg, I felt like I might regurgitate an Easter bunny. W received the bowl of oatmeal (into which I grated the remains of a half-eaten pear) he requested. I ate some granola and yogurt and cheese. Not sure what Mike ate – likely some leftover lamb and potatoes.
Crème Brulégg
5 large egg yolks
6 Tbsp. sugar
2 cups heavy (whipping) cream or 18% coffee cream
1/2 tsp. good-quality vanilla (I used Madagascar vanilla bean paste, in which you can see the teeny seeds from the vanilla pod)
sugar, for sprinkling on top
4-6 Cadbury’s Easter Creme Eggs
In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Whisk in the cream and vanilla.
Divide among 4-6 small ramekins, and nestle an Easter creme egg in each. Place in a roasting pan or 9″x13″ pan, fill with water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins, and bake at 325F for 30-45 minutes, or until set but still slightly jiggly. Take them out, let them cool and then refrigerate for a few hours or overnight, until nice and cold.
Sprinkle an even layer of sugar over each dish and caramelize with a torch or transfer to a cookie sheet and place under the broiler in the oven for about 2 minutes, just until the sugar is caramelized and golden. Turn the sheet around if you need to to help them caramelize evenly. Refrigerate again, or just let them sit on the countertop while you eat dinner or make coffee, just until the sugar is set and crackly.
Serves 6.
One Year Ago: Bison Chili and Chocolate Chunk Quinoa Cookies
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April 07 2009 | dessert | 20 Comments »
I may be forced to switch careers to something not food-related. I mean, food is just so good. This photo does not do dinner justice. (And yes, I realize that is not a suitable serving size for meat and potatoes. Did I mention the roasted lamb and garlicky lemon potatoes? And how good they were? I knew to take lots from picking at the crispy bits.) I’d like to say we also ate salad, but there just wasn’t room.
And the funny thing? It’s one of the easiest things I’ve ever made. Why is it that the celebratory stuff – the edibles that make a huge splash – always end up being the simplest? What are we so afraid of?
(Ha – I thought this thought felt familiar – I had the same reaction last time I made roast leg of lamb!)
Lamb, of course, is all over the place in spring, and very often makes its way onto an Easter table. Cooking an entire leg of lamb, however, can be a hassle, mostly due to its shape – thick on one end, tapered on the other, it’s difficult to cook evenly without one end being overcooked or the other raw. Deboned legs of lamb are good alternatives – without bones it’s a more uniform cut of meat, and stuffable – but in general meat roasted on the bone has more flavour.
The other thing about leg of lamb, whether it’s the entire leg or just the shank portion, is that it has a lot of tough connective tissues which need long, slow cooking in order to break them down.
Enter my CrockPot. (While we’re on the subject, I stopped by Zellers today, and while chasing W down the small appliances aisle noticed that CrockPots – the same kind I gave away awhile ago – are 50% off this week – only $24.95! Twenty-four! Ninety-five!) Lamb is the perfect candidate for a slow cooker. I bought an entire leg, bone in, and when it looked like it might not fit (I told the butcher I planned to jam it into my CrockPot) he simply sawed off the shank. Perfect.
Now, any number of flavours go with lamb. You don’t need to rub it down with anything, but I chose to make a sort of rough paste out of garlic, rosemary, lemon and olive oil and smear it all over the meat first. Cumin would have worked well too, or fresh thyme. At this point you could leave it to sit for a bit, or refrigerate it overnight to let it marinate. Then all I did was toss it into the slow cooker – no need to brown it first, although you could – pour about a half cup of red wine or stock or tomato juice or water around it, and leave it to cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Slow-cooked Leg of Lamb with Garlic, Lemon & Rosemary (in the CrockPot!)
1 leg of lamb (that will fit in your CrockPot – if not, get the butcher to cut off the shank end) – with or without bone
1 lemon
4-5 garlic cloves, sliced or crushed
1 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
some wine, chicken or beef stock, tomato juice or water
On a chopping board, pat your lamb dry with paper towels. Finely grate about half the zest off the lemon and grind into a paste with the garlic, rosemary, oil, salt and pepper using a mortar and pestle. Rub the paste all over the lamb. If you like, let it sit on the countertop for half an hour or so, or refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.
Put it into the CrockPot. Add about half a cup of liquid. Squeeze the juice of the lemon overtop too. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.
And the only thing to serve with roast lamb is lemon potatoes. So I offer up this recipe:
Lemon Potatoes with Garlic and Oregano
3 lbs. Yukon gold or baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup olive or canola oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed or thinly sliced
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano, crumbled
1 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup beef or chicken stock
1/3 cup lemon juice
chopped fresh oregano (optional)
Preheat oven to 400°F. Spread the potatoes in a single layer in a 9″ x 13″ baking dish and pour the oil over them. Add the garlic, dried oregano, salt and pepper to taste and toss well to coat with the oil.
Roast the potatoes for 15 minutes. Add the stock, toss and bake for 10 minutes more. Add the lemon juice, toss and bake for 10 to 15 minutes more, or until the potatoes are golden and cooked through. If you like, sprinkle with fresh oregano.
One Year Ago: Curried Squash Soup, Spinach, Feta & Orzo Salad, Apple Pie and Sunken Black Forest Cupcakes
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April 06 2009 | leftovers | 40 Comments »
FINALLY. I have been looking forward to this moment for a week and a half. Honestly, how can anyone be expected to lose weight when things like hand-made peroghies with caramelized onions and bacon exist in the world? Particularly when you go to the store and they don’t have any sour cream so you are forced to buy a container of Liberte crème fraîche instead? (It’s like sour cream extreme – without the tanginess.)
So let’s lay the groundwork here. Peroghies – I am a fan. But they make a prime example of something that can be very, very good or very, very bad, and those whiter-than-white ice-crystalled wads of dough you can buy dozens of for two dollars in the freezer section of the grocery store give them a bad rap. To be honest, I’ve always felt a little ripped off that I didn’t inherit any generations- old peroghy recipes from my Ukrainian in-laws. Or cabbage rolls, even. (Or anything food related besides packs of Dentyne and bags of Bits n’ Bites at Christmas.) After all, the history that comes with them is a huge part of the peroghy experience.
So I’m happy to have fallen into a friendship with a new generation Ukrainian Baba – sure, she’s only a mama now, but she has potential. And she learned her peroghy-making techniques from her own Baba, who used to be the type to wait up with a pot of water on the boil and throw some handmade dumplings in the minute you walked in the door. Hell, I’d have married her.
It’s not so much the peroghies themselves I have trouble with – rolling and filling a dumpling is easy enough – nor the fillings; mashed potato makes a great starchy canvas to add any number of ingredients to. But the dough. I want a good, tender dough. More than that, I want one that didn’t come out of a magazine, but from someone’s Ukranian Baba who has hand rolled thousands of from-scratch peroghies in her lifetime. You can’t get much more expert than that. Even on Food Network.
So I went to C’s house the week before last – a quicker in-and-out than I would have liked, but we did squeeze in a few dozen peroghy, and it reminded me how much I like being in the kitchen with someone, chatting and wiping doughy hands on aprons in the sunny patch by the window. And how rare it is these days. It used to be how women socialized – early multitasking as they caught up on the whats what while nimbly filling and shaping hundreds of peroghy. Now we meet at Starbucks or get the news about friends having their babies when it’s posted on Facebook.
You don’t need a recipe for fillings. Seriously. Plain old mashed potato counts. Cottage cheese is common, as is cheddar and onion, but you can do whatever you like with a peroghy. I made a filling of mashed potatoes with caramelized onions and sharp cheddar, and another using up the last of the chicken and gravy from my chicken and dumplings; finely chopped and stirred into some mashed potato with garlic. C’s toddler cooed and played in her high chair with diced pears while we worked, providing inspiration for caramelized pear and ricotta filling C made after I ran off to do an interview. I can’t wait to try those. Perhaps hot and crisped up from the skillet, over vanilla ice cream.
Cheryl’s Baba’s Pyrohy Dough
from her Baba’s kitchen, and Backseat Gourmet
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1 large egg
2 cups recently boiled water (very hot)
In a large bowl mix together the flour and salt.
Combine the oil and the egg, beat together lightly. Stir in to the flour and salt. It will not combine well, but keep stirring and working at it until you have a coarse meal, like biscuit dough would be before you added the liquid.
Pour your hot water in to the flour and egg mixture, all at once. Immediately start stirring. It won’t look like it is coming together, but keep stirring it. Don’t beat the crap out of it, but stir for a minute or two and it will come together into a somewhat lumpy, ugly dough.
Cover with a damp tea towel or loosely cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 15 minutes, if not 30.
To make your peroghy, roll the dough out fairly thin and cut into rounds with a glass rim or round cookie cutter – or not. C rolls her dough into a long rope, cuts off 1″ sections and then rolls each ball into a rough circle, thus not wasting any dough nor needing to reroll scraps, which can make dough tough. However you do it, fill each with a small spoonful of filling and fold over, pinching the edges to seal. You don’t need to brush them with water or egg wash or anything – the dough is soft enough to stick together well. (This dough, by the way, is the dough I’ve been searching for all my life.)
Once assembled, freeze them on cookie sheets – you can get away with two layers with a tea towel between them to keep them from sticking – then transfer to freezer bags. Boil from frozen until they float to the surface, then give them another minute – C serves hers like this, but I like to brown them first in the pan that I have just finished cooking bacon and caramelizing onions in. (Chop a few slices of bacon and thinly slice an onion; cook them together in a skillet until the bacon is cooked through and its rendered fat helps caramelize the onions to a deep golden.) DIVINE.
It’s a good thing we all have the ability to piecemeal together families for ourselves. Now all I need to find is a good Italian bunch who feeds large groups homemade pastas on Sunday afternoons.
One Year Ago: Thick Fried Noodles with Chicken and Ginger Beef (not a recipe – sorry)
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April 04 2009 | freezable and leftovers | 26 Comments »
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