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My Braise Was A Bust

Marcia January 23, 2011 Banter, Cookbooks, Cooking, Learning to cook, Recipes 0

These lamb shanks look delicious! Unfortunately, they are not my shanks . . . (photo by Jennifer via Wikimedia Commons)

So, the stressful, senseless holiday season had finally given way to calm, cool, January. OK, maybe calm, cool, overabundant in its snow production January — but a good month nonetheless to tackle a braise. The day of the Pats – Jets play-off game seemed a perfect day to let something sit in the oven for hours — I could have the braise braise while I watched the late-afternoon Sunday game and then enjoy a leisurely if somewhat late dinner since neither Gary nor I had to work the following day (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

A perfect plan, but what should I braise? Meat? Fish? Chicken? Or did I want to make a stew? Beef, lamb, or pork made the most sense at the time if I wanted to stretch the cooking time to at least three hours — the usual length of a pro football game. Short ribs were an option — the short ribs in cherry sauce we made in our Moist Heat Cooking class were great, especially the sauce. Hm. Pork was out because I made a pork roast just two weeks before and I wanted to attempt something totally different. Continue reading »

Culinary Resolutions for 2011

Marcia December 30, 2010 Baking, Banter, Cooking, Learning to cook 0

Fennel, mussels, restaurant dining room, chocolate torte

Though I thoroughly savored my culinary exploits in the year 2010, I look forward to more learning, cooking, and enjoying in 2011. Here are some of my anticipated achievements:
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Blue Ribbon Barbecue

Marcia July 4, 2010 Banter, Restaurants 0
Blue Ribbon Barbecue

Blue Ribbon Barbecue, Arlington, MA

Blue Ribbon Barbecue
908 Massachusetts Avenue
Arlington, Massachusetts
(781) 648-7427

I’ve generally been unenthused by Fourth-of-July festivities or culinary fare. The advent of the day often depresses me because it’s the day I realize one-third of the summer is already gone, in many cases wasted away with missed opportunities to soak in sun or enjoy the longer days. And fireworks — a series of short-lived, superficial bursts of color—just aren’t intriguing enough for me to endure crazed, screaming, or drunken crowds. Aimee Mann touched on similar sentiments in her song “4th of July”:

Today’s the fourth of July
another June has gone by
And when they light up our town I just think
what a waste of gunpowder and sky

—from “Whatever,” 1993, The Imago Recording Company

Food-wise, for much of my teenage and young-adult life Independence Day meant a paternally imposed and catered under-the-back-porch cookout. The event was attended by my sister Bea and me and sometimes the family cat, with my mom “joining” us from the family room, just beyond the backdoor screen. Also present were the ol’ gnarly picnic table — which took up half the makeshift patio under the porch, the underside of which was laced with spider webs and other nests of nature (the locale was dark, dusty, and grimy, but definitely shady!) — charcoal-grilled hot dogs and burgers, buns, rolls, cole slaw and potato salad from DeMoulas/Market Basket, assorted beverages, and the ubiquitous squeeze bottle of Plochman’s yellow mustard. To thwart insectile attempts to join the feast, exposed food received additional shade in the form of a screen-food-dome-thingy most likely purchased from a Walter Drake or Lillian Vernon catalog. There was usually a fly swatter close by.

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Five new food groups

Marcia February 24, 2010 Banter, Western diet 0

So, it’s almost two months into my stop-eating-crap objective so it’s time for some pause and reflection.

The most noteworthy omissions from my daily diet are far from the most beloved. Through January and February, I had no SlimFast bars, frozen dinners, canned soups, store-bought bread, diet soda (except for one instance where no other low-cal beverage was available), 100-cal packs of anything, reconstituted hot chocolate, or fat-free half-and-half.

With these and other omissions came substitutions, trade-offs, and new habits. For example:

  • Breakfast. With SlimFast and Kashi Crunch out of the picture, weekday breakfasts, which I eat at work, have been challenging. Mostly, I’ve been eating steel-cut oatmeal or 10-grain hot cereal prepared at home, scooped by the cupful into Rubbermaid containers, and nuked for about 2 minutes in the work microwave. Sugar, fresh or dried fruit, and maybe some chopped nuts are added at various points in this operation. Outside of hot oatmeal, there’s homemade muffins and breads, and the occasional bakery scone. If I were able to prepare and eat breakfasts at home, smoothies and omelets would rule the morning.

  • Bread. Oh, how I miss the convenience of commercially manufactured bread and breadstuffs. My Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat Swirl Bread! Kasanoff’s Marble Rye! Sahara Whole Wheat Pitas! Actually, I only miss the prepared pita, since a hummus lunch (yes, comercially processed hummus — more on that later) isn’t the same without it. This weekend will be my first try at making my own pita, but I’ve already had success with baking my own breads, muffins, and rolls.

  • Beverages. Fat-free half-and-half out of my coffee; whole milk or low-fat milk in. Diet soda has been replaced with either water—tap where available and potable, else bottled—or hot or iced tea.

Anyway, throughout my two-month acclimation towards a non-crap diet, I found myself grouping potential edibles into five categories—five new food groups, if you will:

The Five New Food Groups

The five new food groups (according to No-Whining Dining)

Let me say from the get-go that many of these categories will overlap, as you will soon see . . .
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Curly, Crispy Kale

Marcia February 5, 2010 Banter, Recipes 0

Spicy Crispy Kale Chips from nutritiontokitchen.com

I ate a lot of kale this week, having purchased one bunch too many of the vivacious veggie at Whole Foods. What a spunky, curly green leaf bursting with personality! The leaves come across as bitter at first, but they can mellow with cooking, and shrink when prepared in liquid, without losing their characteristic curliness in the process.

Curly kale is just one variety of kale, of course. And kale is just one of many winter greens I desire to explore, in part inspired by the Eating Well article that included the recipe for Monday night’s meal of Kale, Sausage, & Lentil Skillet Supper. The Supper was wholesome, earthy, and satisfying, though I think a wee more spice or spark would have made it more interesting. And I added all the French lentils I had — about one and a quarter cup — which yielded an overwhelming amount of lentils. The recipe made more than four servings for sure.

OK, back to that leftover bale of kale (a baby bale?). A google search led me to Nutrition to Kitchen’s intriguing Spicy Crispy Kale recipe. Though I had decided to make this irresistible recipe on Superbowl Sunday so I can munch on something healthy while watching the Colts trample the Saints, I had nothing on tonight’s agenda so I figured I’d give it a go along with another skillet supper — this time with chicken sausage, Yukon gold potatoes, and frozen mixed vegetables.

The chips were fabulous. It’s amazing how they can enter the oven confident, firm, and flexible but emerge vulnerable, brittle, and crispy. Great crunch, great taste. Gary thought it would make a great garnish for a soup or casserole. I agreed. I will definitely be making these again.

Minestrone soup for the culinarily insane

Marcia January 26, 2010 Banter, Cookbooks, Recipes 0
Minestrone Soup Recipe

My minestrone soup of yore

Several weeks ago my cabbagephobic husband broke his cabbage taboo and fixed a vegetable and sausage soup. The deliciousness of the sausage would outweigh any ick or stink of the cabbage, so his reasoning went. Another unusual (for us) addition to this concoction: tomato juice. The combination of tomato-based broth and mildly crunchy cabbage reminded me of a minestrone soup I used to enjoy many years ago.

This minestrone, as I remember it, had tender red kidney beans and soft but assertive elbow macaronis. The recipe, which I just dug up, called for frozen mixed vegetables, beef bouillon cubes, and a lot of celery as well; but the memorable aspects were the cabbage, tomato, and macaroni. I had made a mental note to fix this memorable minestrone sometime soon. Then I forgot about it again . . .

. . . until I started looking for a suitable use for a large amount of curly endive leftover from an overzealous greens purchase I made in pursuit of my first salad ala Alice Waters. The salad consisted only of red leaf lettuce and curly endive, the endive being totally edible and nicely bitter, but a little tough. “I feel like a ruminant,” declared my husband between chews. I conceded that this hearty green might be more easily eaten cooked, so I searched the Web for ideas and found a minestrone soup recipe on the Eating Well site. Aha! I can dig up my old minestrone soup recipe and add the endive to that!

But wait! There’s more! Let me see if The Art of Simple Food has a minestrone recipe. If it does, I’ll make that instead!
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A quick, light vinaigrette

Marcia January 19, 2010 Banter, Cookbooks, Recipes 0
Vinagrette ingredients

A simple fix: Wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper

For the actual recipe, scroll down to the bottom of the post.

Just days after denouncing all dietary crap, I found myself in a little late-night quandary. While hastily preparing a portable lunch for the next day, I realized I had no crapless salad dressing on tap. In the home fridge we had Kraft Lite Ranch and Newman’s Own Light Lime Vinaigrette, the latter of which would have been good enough by my new standards but I really wanted to try to throw a dressing together before my quickly approaching bedtime. I’d just need a little guidance. Let me check a few cookbooks . . .

Hm. Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette or Blue Cheese Dressing from Healthy in a Hurry? Nope. No tomatoes on hand; no blue cheese to speak of. Okay, how about Apple Basil Dressing or maybe Orange Tarragon from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites? Intriguing, but no basil and no tarragon. And I had no creamy cucumbers, no minted dill, no lemon tahini, no fresh buttermilk, nor any ingredient these seemingly basic dressings required. I was too stubborn to Google “viniagrette” — why did none of my cookbooks have a simple vinaigrette recipe?

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Objective three: Find more cookbooks to love

Marcia January 17, 2010 Banter, Cookbooks 0
Oatmeal Corn Meal Bread, from The Book of Bread by Judith and Evan Jones

Oatmeal Corn Meal Bread, from The Book of Bread by Judith and Evan Jones

While composing the opening paragraph for a post about my favorite cookbooks I realized I had only two cookbooks that I really really loved, at least in my current collection, plus a handful of hardy go-to books, the recipes and advice of which result in many a speedy or satisfying meal, but don’t possess the material or artistry or style to bring them from 4-star (like it a lot) to 5-star (love it!) status.

The two books I own that I will happily curl up with to read and eagerly anticipate what recipe I shall try next are The Book of Bread by Judith and Evan Jones and White Chocolate by Janice Wald Henderson. It’s not just that I love kneading and shaping and baking and eating bread, or am delighted by the ivoryness, creaminess, and subtlety of white chocolate, but that these are the only two cookbooks I own about foods that I adore and through which I allow myself an occasional flight of fancy.

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