Whole grilled chicken

You all know how much I love to roast chickens. It's easy and delicious and it seems like I constantly am doing it, doesn't it? In the summer, it's fun to move from roasting a whole chicken indoors in the oven to grilling a whole spatchcocked chicken outside. Beyond the obvious advantages of not heating up your whole apartment and setting off your fire alarm (even if you do have your own personal medical professional to fan the smoke away), a whole chicken on the grill just tastes amazing--juicy, moist and full of smokey delicious flavor. Best of all it is so so easy and still manages to look impressive for dinner. The only even slightly tricky thing you have to do is to spatchcock the bird first. What does that mean? Well, I took a bunch of pictures so I could make the preparation process seem more clear.

Get your whole chicken and a pair of poultry shears. Lay your bird out with the backbone facing up and cut into the back, along both sides of the backbone and remove it. There! That's the hardest part and you'll find it is quite easy. When the backbone is removed, flatten the bird with your hand--it will squish flat quite easily.

Here's what I additionally do to make it easier to flip on the grill: on the other side of the chicken, cut a slit in the skin between the thigh and the chicken's ass And tuck the end of the drumstick in to keep it packed up. Do the same to the other side. Tuck the wings under so they won't burn. Now your chicken is spatchcocked! Drizzle it on both sides with a healthy 3 tablespoons or so of olive oil, and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Now put the chicken on the grill over medium-high coals and let it go for 45 minutes or so. Mostly cover it to keep all your smoke going, especially if you use aromatic hardwood charcoal, which I vastly prefer to the chemical-soaked briquettes. Keep a good eye on it and flip the bird every now and then to keep it evenly browning. If you want to, you can do what I did and brush on a simple glaze in the last 15 minutes of grilling. I mixed a few tablespoons of bottled BBQ sauce with the juice from 1/2 a lime, salt, pepper and a couple of splashes from the glass of chardonnay that I was drinking. If you don't have any BBQ sauce handy, you can use tomato paste or even ketchup. Try adding tamari and brown sugar for a variation (leave out the salt then). Brush the glaze over your chicken, let it grill for 5 minutes, then turn it over and brush the other side, then leave it for 5 minutes. Turn it over again and brush it lightly one more time and 5 minutes later, you are all done. With a glaze-shiny, perfectly juicy, spatchcocked chicken! And you barely did any work at all, hotshot.

Note: One chicken works great for 2 people, with a few leftovers. If you have a bunch of people coming over, just multiply it out with as many more chickens that you'll need and have room on your grill for. It is an easy and delicious grill option for a dinner party that also makes you look like you know how to cook.

Grilled vegetable salad

The keywords for this salad are things like "bounty" and "variety" and "creativity." Go to your farmers market and peruse the vegetables--I found early summer squash, baby zucchini and sweet Vidalia onions. There were also beautiful lettuces of all varieties and gorgeous English cucumbers. Non-farmer's market salad additions included grape tomatoes (although there are some locally grown hot house tomatoes available already), pine nuts, goat cheese and big cremini mushrooms. Assemble whatever your beautiful farmer's market veggies might be, slice them up and grill them after a bath in a simple marinade. Lay out over dressed greens, sprinkle with whatever accoutrements catch your fancy, and enjoy! Here's my version of this improvisational salad...

First prep all your vegetables. I used 1 small zucchini and 2 small yellow crookneck squash. Slice the zucchini in half through the middle and then slice the pieces into half-moon chunks and then into long batons. Or you can just cut them into rounds if you want. Slice the yellow squash into diagonal slices of about 1/2" width each. Place the zucchini and squash slices aside in a large bowl. Get your big sweet onion and slice into thick rounds, then place in the bowl as well. Find some big cremini mushrooms and slice them in half. If they aren't so big, just leave them whole. Put the mushrooms into the large bowl with the other veggies and cover everything with a simple marinade. I used 5 tablespoons olive oil mixed with 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Mix the veggies up well and let them marinate for at least 30 minutes to an hour. Get your grill revved up and lay out your vegetables over medium heat, turning them often and moving them around so they don't burn up. The mushrooms will get all shrively and delicious and the squash/zucchini should get yummy looking grill marks all over. As each vegetable finishes cooking (this is pretty much an eyeballing thing--mine took about 15-20 minutes all together), remove it to a plate and set aside. Meanwhile, in a big salad bowl, mix up your greens with a sliced cucumber, halved grape tomatoes and a simple vinegrette. I made mine with the juice from one lemon shaken together with 3 tablespoons olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. That's it! After all your vegetables are grilled up, toss them very lightly with the dressed green salad and top with crumbled goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. Oh, you will be one happy camper.

Strawberry rhubarb compote

Strawberries are so perfectly in season right now in Georgia, I have been buying them at the Morningside farmer's market every weekend. A springtime delicacy that I really miss down here though is rhubarb. I don't think we have the climate for it, it's really a cool-weather plant. This is shored up by the fact that when I was discussing the possibility of making this compote with Melanie, she kind of thought about it for a minute and then said she'd never had fresh rhubarb. As she is a Georgia girl born and raised, I took this as further evidence of it not occurring in nature in these climes. I was lucky enough to fall in the good graces of a rhubarb connection however, and procured a couple pounds of this wonderful vegetable. They met up with our incredible local strawberries, and everything got stewed together into a really easy compote.
Cut up a pound of rhubarb stalks into 1 inch chunks. Put them in a pot with 3/4 cup each water and sugar. Set it over medium-high heat and let it stew until the rhubrab is falling apart, about 15 minutes. Now here is a cautionary tale for you: Do not become distracted and ignore your pot. All that sugar will totally burn hell out of your nice dutch oven and you will be sorry for days as you try to clean it out.
Drat. I am so foolish. Anyway, when the rhubarb is falling apart, but before you burn your pot, add in a pound or so of fresh, sliced strawberries. Let them get soft along with the rhubarb for about another 5 minutes, stirring often. That's really all you need to do and you will have the delicious, saucy, classic combo of of strawberry-rhubarb. You can jazz it up by cooking it in orange juice or adding some liquor if you like. Mel has been pouring it over plain yogurt for breakfast, or it could be the base for a baked dessert with a crumbly topping. Otherwise, enjoy it as we did, over vanilla ice cream.

Try not to let it get snatched away though.

BBQ pork: I learnt cooking skills in the kitchen of Shaolin Monastary

I'm calling this BBQ pork because that's what it is referred to as in my all-time favorite movie, God of Cookery. In fact, permit me to rhapsodize on the merits of this glorious cinematic achievement for just a minute here, in case you are unfamiliar. It's the story of a Hong Kong celebrity chef named Steven Chow (who is, conveniently enough, played by the actor/director also named Steven Chow) who has risen to power-mad heights but through a series of down-turning events must learn and prove his worth back again. It is completely hilarious, brilliant, romantic, action-packed, hilarious, food porny, features the Eighteen Brassmen of Shaolin Temple, and has musical numbers! Chances are if we've spent much time together, I've made you watch it with me at some point. If not--you really should go rent it, it's great. I have the poster hanging in my kitchen, actually.


So! BBQ pork. In the movie, Karen Mok's character makes this for Steven Chow and he cries. It turns up again later and causes even more crying. Mine is not that good, but it is a really good use for leftover ribs or whatever else you brought home from Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q. If you, sadly, don't have a great barbeque place that often results in leftovers in your fridge you can use roast pork from the grocery store or leftovers from something else you cooked. Whatever it is, cut it into thin strips and set aside. Cook up a bunch of rice--I made brown rice but that isn't traditional, it's just what I generally make at home. I sliced up 3 small heads of bok choy (fantastic-looking and locally grown!) and set aside. Got 2 tablespoons sesame oil heating in a pan and added in 2 thinly sliced cloves of garlic, 4 minced scallions (both green and white parts), plus 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes. When the garlic was lightly golden (about 1 minute over high heat), I added in the bok choy and stirred it around over high heat until wilty, which took about 3 minutes. Turned down the heat to medium, cleared a space in the center of the pan (push all the bok choy around to the edges in a ring) and added in the pork. Since it is already cooked, it just needs to reheat and possibly get a little flavor. For seasoning, I used 2 teaspoons black bean paste and a little soy sauce and kind of mixed it into the pork. While the bok choy and pork are going, get a little pan going with oil over high heat and fry as many eggs as you have people eating. Keep them runny in the center and let the whites become crispy around the edges. When the eggs are perfectly fried, assemble each bowl with a mound of rice, topped with a pile of bok choy, then some pork, then put the fried egg over all. Sprinkle it with sesame seeds, if you like.


I forgot to take a picture of it as it cooked or in its preparatory state, so you'll just have to realize that is was good enough to be totally devoured.

Everybody loves Jones

This is a long awaited (and oft-requested) quick shoutout to a couple of people who are a big part of dinnertime at my house. Melanie and Jeremy are my beloved downstairs neighbors and the people I turn to as guinea pigs for cooking (Mel: "I don't love it..."), as emergency responders for fanning the smoke alarm when it inevitably goes off during chicken roasting, and as my co-conspirators for drinking too much wine on school nights. They're always up for a trip to the farmer's market and always willing to say "eh, screw it, let's just go out for Mexican." I consider myself quite lucky to have my nearest and dearest friends living right downstairs. And this past weekend, Jeremy did something absolutely incredible--he graduated medical school and is now officially our very own Dr. Jones. So, just because they're both awesome, and just because he's now a real doctor, this here's a special post to celebrate Melanie and Jeremy. Thanks, you guys. And way to go.

Braised beef short ribs on horseradish potato purée

This is what I made for the main dish when my mom was visiting in town. It went really well with the spring veggie ragout and I was really impressed with the flavorful-ness of beef short ribs. They're cut along cross-ways, rather than by separating out the long way by each rib section, like you often see with pork ribs. Beef short ribs are cheap and delicious--they require a bit of cooking time but are really easy. Serve these rich cuts of meat over something piquant, such as the horseradish potatoes here, to counterbalance.

I got about 2 1/2 pounds of beef short ribs. Browned them in olive oil over medium-high heat on all sides in my large cast iron dutch oven. You may need to do this in batches--I know I certainly did. They will take about 8 minutes per side. When they've all been browned, remove and set aside. Back in the same pot, sauté 3/4 cup each chopped onion and carrot until soft and lightly browned (about 8 minutes), then add 3 cloves minced garlic and continue to sauté for another minute. Add a 16-ounce can of chopped tomatoes (or tomato puree, whichever you have handy) and bring it all to a boil. Add in 1 ½ cups of a good red wine and boil for 8 minutes (I keep recommending 8 minutes as the optimal time to do things for this recipe, don't know why that is). Now add in 4 cups of stock (I had a good homemade chicken stock in the fridge so I used that, you can use beef or veal stock if you manage it and this will be even more delicious) and bring it to a simmer with a pinch of dried thyme and 2 bay leaves tossed in there too. When it is at a simmer, add back in your beef ribs along with any juices that have accumulated on the plate you removed them to. Cover the pot and stick it in an 250 degree oven to braise for 3 hours. When it emerges you will be so happy.

These beef ribs create an amazing sauce that need a good bed to be served on. I made horseradish potatoes and it was really easy. It's not like you won't have the time, what with the short ribs braising for 3 freaking hours. Peel and cut into chunks about 1 ½ pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes. Boil the chunks in salted water for 20 minutes, or until whenever they are soft. Drain them lightly, return to the pot and mash really well with ½ cup cream, 4 tablespoons butter, salt, pepper and 4 tablespoons prepared horseradish. You can purée this through a food mill for a really creamy texture. To serve, mound some of the potatoes on a dish and swirl it around with a spoon to flatten. Over the potatoes, rest 2 or 3 short ribs and ladle some of the delicious sauce over the top.

Spring vegetable ragout

My mother was here visiting over the weekend...it was fun and exhausting. I think she has more energy than anyone I know. She's like a tiny, Italian perpetual motion machine. We had a great time and made a trip to the Morningside farmers market. There were tomatoes (although they were probably not grown outdoors), and strawberries, fava beans, lettuce, arugula, green garlic and tons of other produce available. I thought these perfect springtime veggies would go well in a fresh ragout with some lemon juice, dill, and and a little cream. We had Betsy, Ryan and Paul over and everyone got to hang out with mom, drink wine, learn to juggle, etc.

Start with 8 tiny baby artichokes. If you can't find them, you can use big ones and cut them up into quarters (or use good quality artichoke hearts for a different style but equally delicious dish). Steam or boil them until tender--about 30 minutes. Fish them out and slice in half lengthwise and set aside. Shell about a pound of fava beans. I know it's tedious as hell (you have to shuck them out of the pod, then skin each one) so if you don't feel like preparing a whole pound, don't worry about it. The amounts here are very flexible. Or you could use frozen shelled edamame instead, if you don't have fresh fava beans. Thinly slice 3 green garlic (or scallions can replace) using a few inches of the pale green part in addition to the white bulb. Saute the green garlic/scallion in 2 tablespoons butter until soft and fragrant. Add 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, a pinch of salt, your shelled fava beans and 1/2 cup green peas. Saute everything together in the butter for 1 minute, then add 1/2 cup chicken stock and continue to stir. After 5-7 minutes over medium-high heat, add a teaspoon of dill (use fresh dill if you have it, but add at least twice as much), and 1/4 cup heavy cream. Stir everything gently together and add the baby artichoke halves at the very end, just to heat through. Fresh mint would be wonderful scattered over the top to serve but I didn't have any.

Smoked salmon pasta

Betsy and I were having an evening wherein work pressures and life annoyances had driven us to consume something extraordinarily creamy and rich. This pasta fits that kind of day perfectly. Make it on some evening when you know you'll have enough people over for dinner to eat it all because it isn't one of those pasta sauces that keeps well. This will easily serve 4 people, more if you are doing small portions for a first course. It's really easy to make and would be great with a green salad tossed in a bright vinaigrette to contrast with the creamy sauce--of course the other day when I made this we were feeling sorry for ourselves and didn't scare up any green vegetables at all. Betsy showed up and said "well, I didn't bring any salad stuff...but look! I brought brownies! And wine!" Which, if you think about it, is even more awesome than a salad, especially on cruddy days.

You will need a chunk of good smoked salmon--I used about 8 ounces but it's a pretty flexible thing. The better the salmon is, the better your sauce will be. Use a knife or a fork and flake up your chunk of salmon into little pieces and set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and saute 1 small minced onion over medium heat until lightly caramelized and all soft and golden, about 8 minutes. Turn your heat up to medium-high and add 1 cup white wine and let it sizzle for a second to burn off the alcohol. Add 1 6-ounce can tomato paste and saute with the onions and wine for 1 minute then add 1/2 cup tomato puree (note: you can use any kind of canned tomato at this point as long as it isn't more tomato paste or nasty premade tomato sauce. Diced tomatoes are fine, or whatever else you happen to have in your cupboard). Add 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese in chunks, while stirring the sauce gently to make sure the cream cheese melts--it should turn a really pretty light pink color. Add in about 3 tablespoons of half-and-half (or milk or cream) to smooth it out. When the sauce is smooth, add your flaked smoked salmon and 2 teaspoons fresh black pepper. Taste it to see if it needs salt--smoked salmon is pretty salty already so it might be OK. If it seems too rich and creamy you can add a tablespoon vodka or a drizzle more white wine or some more tomato puree if you want it less pink. Either way, boil up a pound of penne pasta (or something else if you like it better), drain it lightly when it is al dente, return it to the pot you boiled it in and toss it together with your salmon sauce. Serve immediately with wine and brownies and stop worrying about your job.

Beet tzatziki and flank steak

So this whole dinner came about because of a beet tzatziki that I made and didn't know what I should do with once I'd made it. I made the tzatziki because I couldn't resist buying these gorgeous candy-colored beets at the Morningside farmer's market and they needed to be used up. Aviva and Ali and I had our porky tofu dinner the other night and we were just sitting around and chatting afterwards, so I decided to make this because I was roasting the beets anyway and wanted to do something with my hands while we talked besides drink wine (beet tzatziki--the solution for my incipient alcoholism?). It is an amazing color; a bright pink that seems impossible to occur in nature, but it totally does, y'all. I packed it up in the fridge in tupperware and thought about it for a day or so until I decided it would be great with flatbread, grilled flank steak and an assortment of other vaguely mediterranean dishes (see the last 2 posts if you are curious). A note about the type of yogurt used in tzatziki--it is sort of a special kind. It's a thick, greek-style yogurt which means it is creamier and thicker than regular yogurt and makes a revelatory sauce. So go get yourself a nice piece of beef, grill or broil it simply, and use this amazing hot pink sauce as a condiment. If nothing else it makes a great conversation starter.

Trim the greens down to 1 inch from 4 small beets, and lay them on aluminum foil in a pan to roast in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes-1 hour. The aluminum foil is just to keep the beets from staining your dish--if you don't care, don't use the foil. If you don't have small farmer's market type beets, just use 1 huge one instead. When they are soft, take them out and let them cool until you can handle them. Take the skins off (this is easy once beets are cooked, usually they just slip right off with the aid of a sharp knife) and grate the beets into a mixing bowl. Add 1 minced clove garlic, juice from 1 lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Let it sit for 5 minutes to mellow, then add at least 1 cup of thick greek-style yogurt and mix it up really well. It will be the most intense, shocking pink you've ever seen, like a cracked out Victoria's Secret window display. You may have to look away for fear of searing your retinas. Taste it and add more yogurt if it is too candy-sweet (beets are, like, pure sugar), you can add up to 1/2 cup more yogurt, if you like. Stir in some dill--1 tablespoon minced if it is fresh, or 1/2 tablespoon if it is dried.

Now for the steak. I rubbed a 2 pound flank steak with a mixture of 3 tablespoons olive oil, 3 cloves minced garlic, 2 teaspoons paprika, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, sea salt and fresh black pepper. Let this sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes, then turned on the oven broiler and stuck my grill pan in to get hot for a minute. Put the steak on the grill pan and broiled it--about 7 minutes per side. Cut into it and check after you flip it to see if it is done to your liking. You can also just throw it on the grill rather than broil it--I probably would have but I think my grill is still on Mel and Jeremy's porch. When it is cooked the way you want it, pull it out and slice into thin strips across the grain. Pour the pan juices over the slices and serve with the beet tzatziki sauce and flatbread.

Spiced couscous

This went along with the previously mentioned green beans and the not-yet mentioned flank steak in our dinner the other night. Melanie, Jeremy and Ali were all over and it was fun--especially as Melanie brought her mom's chocolate pound cake and Ali brought over chocolate-caramel covered matzoh. I'm always excited when other people bring desserts--it's just not something I do well, in case y'all haven't noticed. Anyway, Jeremy was sad that this was small-grain "normal" couscous, rather than the large pearl couscous that I usually make, but I thought it was a better accompaniment to the pan-mediterranean style dinner that I had going on, so he just had to deal with it. This is a very highly flavored, pretty side dish with a subtle Morrocan/Sicilian feel to it. It would be good either hot or at room-temperature, which makes me think it would be perfect to take on a picnic.

Start with 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Add ¼ cup minced onion, ¼ cup minced carrot and one de-seeded and minced small serrano pepper. Any tiny slightly hot green pepper will do fine (jalapeno, cubanelle, whatever) just be sure that it is not large (about 2 inches long is fine) and make sure to de-seed it first. Saute in the butter-oil mixture until tender, then clear space in the center of the pot and add 1 teaspoon chile powder, 1 teaspoon paprika, ½ teaspoon cumin to bloom in the oil. "Blooming" your spices in heat is the best way to bring out their full flavor and potential--mostly in spice mixtures like curry powder or chile powder. What it does is release the oils and intensifies the flavor of the spice, which they do not get the opportunity to do when you just dump them into a liquidy mixture. They need full contact with a hot pan. Anyway, heat your spices and mix them in with the sauteeing vegetables, then add ½ teaspoon tumeric and 1 ¼ cup couscous (I'm just guessing on the additional ¼ cup part, all I know is that I had a little bit left in the container so I just added it. Definitely at least a cup though). Mix everything well together and add 1/3 cup golden raisins and 1 ¼ cups chicken stock, bring to a boil, cover, and turn off the heat. Let it steam covered and off-heat for 5-8 minutes, then add 1 tablespoon each minced cilantro and mint. You can use parsley instead if you want, I just happened to have these in my fridge. Fluff the couscous with a fork, mix in the juice of 1 lemon and serve hot or cold.

Agrodolce green beans with pistachios

Let me just tell you right now, this is delicious. Agrodolce sauce is good with many things although I think traditionally it is served with meat or fish. It is usually composed of thinly sliced and somewhat caramelized onion or shallots in a balsamic vinegar-sugar mixture. It is the sweet-and-sour sauce of Italy. Well, I'm a fan of green beans right now, especially the beautiful ones we are currently getting in the market up from Florida, so I decided that the sweet-sour-oniony treatment is just what they needed, plus a crispy, salty topping of pistachios to really highlight all that tangy sweetness. These went really well with a couscous and flank steak dinner we had last night, for which the recipes will be forthcoming.

First, I trimmed the ends off about a pound of attractive green beans, washed them well and set aside. I sliced up two very small onions--first in half and then crosswise to form thin half moon segments. You can use shallots or red onion if you prefer the flavor--I just didn't have any on hand. I melted together 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat, added the onions and allowed them to cook for about 10 minutes until golden and lightly browned in parts. At that point, I added 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon brown sugar and 2 teaspoons raw sugar. Use whatever type of sugar you like, just not too much. You could probably try making this with honey also. Stir the vinegar, sugar and onions all together to form a syrupy sauce and try it to see if it needs any tweaking. I decided mine was too sweet so I added some white balsamic vinegar to temper it (the dark kind is naturally sweeter). Add a few cranks of salt and pepper, then set aside the sauce. Wipe out the pan, turn the heat up to medium-high and toast 1/4 cup of chopped, salted pistachios until crispy, then take them out and set aside. Add about 1 cup of water to your pan (I just kept using the same pan because I hate washing too many at the end) and get it boiling over high heat, then dump in your green beans to steam-saute. Let them get bright green and crisp-tender (about 4 minutes) then drain them. Toss the green beans in a serving dish with the agrodolce sauce and scatter the toasted pistachios over the top to serve.

Tofu with shitakke mushrooms and pork

So the New York Times had a neat sounding recipe about tofu and pork together! It reminded me of something Marilyn might make so I thought I'd try a version of it. Also I had just purchased some really great, locally farmed pork sausage at the Morningside Market from the good looking meat man with the bright blue eyes (seriously, you can ask Betsy for verification, he was really handsome). Tofu does not necessarily need to be vegetarian, especially when pork makes it so damn delicious. Although if Ariane or Jocelyn wanted to make this, just omit the pork, increase the amount of mushroom and use veggie stock instead, and you'll have yummy vegetarian stirfry with crispy tofu (albeit, one that neither Ben nor Nick will eat, but whatever). Anyway, Aviva and Ali came over for dinner and gossip and this is what we had:

Start out with a 1 pound block of firm tofu and drain it in a colander or something to get some of the water out. Cut it into chunks (new york times said "slabs" but whatever size you like is fine). Heat up 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large nonstick pan and let your tofu chunks/slabs get golden and crispy without stirring--about 4 minutes per side. You might need to do this in 2 batches. Remove the tofu once it is golden and crispy and let it rest on paper towels to drain the oil off. Go back to your now-empty pan and add in the following: a package of shittake mushrooms that you have sliced into thin strips, the white and light-green parts of 4 thinly sliced green onions (I used green garlic since they had it at Morningside), and between 4-5 ounces of pork sausage. Like I said, I had the stuff from the farmer's market and it was all ground up, not in casings or anything like that. I don't actually know how much I used--probably a little more than half of a six-ounce package. You can also slice up chorizo or any other kind of pork sausage that you like. So, I crumbled in my sausage, mushrooms and green garlic and sauteed until soft, then added 1/4 cup chicken stock, 4 teaspoons soy sauce and 2 tablespoons sherry. This is pretty much straightforward and from the New York Times recipe, but I bet there would be more delicious sauce ingredients to add if you wanted to. Stirred it all together for 2 minutes and let the sauce get a little thicker, then added the tofu back in to reheat and served over brown rice.

Carrot cake with pistachio-coconut frosting

I ended up making carrot cake because I had made a huge batch of frosting intended to go on top of cupcakes for Paul's birthday (this is Tech Paul, in order to differentiate him from brother-in-law Paul or work mate Paul, or any other Paul...). The cupcakes weren't all that great, so I'm sparing you the recipe, but the frosting was awesome. There was a whole lot leftover and all I could think of to go with it was carrot cake. Fran and Paul (that's brother-in-law Paul now) were due to arrive for a visit last night and it was too late for dinner, so instead they got carrot cake.

Like I said, I made the frosting first and it had to hang out in the fridge waiting for cake for a couple days, so I'll let it go first as a recipe component: Mix up a package of cream cheese until fluffy, then add about 1/2-3/4 cup of powdered sugar (you might want it more sweet). Added in the juice of 1 orange, mixed well, then put in 1 cup chopped pistachios and 1/2 cup shredded, toasted coconut. I happen to like coconut but I realize it is a polarizing ingredient so feel free to leave it out and add more and different nuts or whatever you like instead. Cream these ingredients all together and stick in the fridge until it is time to frost.

For the cake you will need 2 cups of shredded carrots. Do this first and get it out of the way because it is a pain in the ass to shred carrots. Three large ones seemed to be enough, but they were pretty damn big. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cup vegetable oil, 4 eggs, 1/4 cup honey, 1 teaspoon orange extract and 1 teaspoon almond extract. Beat it all together with your hand mixer (or a whisk, fork, whatever you have handy). In another bowl, sift together 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Make sure it is all evenly mixed together, then add it to the sugar-oil-egg mixture. Add your 2 cups shredded carrots and mix until well incorporated. Pour it all into a greased baking dish. I used a 9x13 glass pan, you can use whatever is convenient, but if it is deeper than a 9x13, your baking time may be longer. Just keep an eye on it. Pop it in your preheated oven for 30-45 minutes, test it with a toothpick to see if the center is done--mine was done at about 35 minutes. Cool completely and frost gently.

Sorrel and spring pea risotto

Remember when I said 2008 was the year of the risotto? Clearly I meant it. For Easter this year we had Paul, Ryan and Betsy over for dinner. I had been to Morningside farmer's market so I had beautiful frisée salad greens, more watermelon radishes (although that farmer told me that this is probably the end of them for the year, so sad), spring onions and a beautiful bunch of sorrel. Sorrel is a leafy green with a wonderful lemony flavor. It is bright and pretty until you cook it, then it turns a muddy dull color. But it tastes amazing! So I thought I'd make a creamy risotto to go with the bright, snappy sorrel and add some tiny sweet green peas at the end to keep a springtime color.

Minced 2 shallots and the white ends from a bunch of spring onions. You can just use 4 shallots instead, if you have no spring onions at your market. I think regular onion would be too strong here. Sauté the shallots and spring onions in 2 tablespoons butter until softened in a large pot. Add 1 1/2 cup arborio rice and continue to sauté for another 3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of chicken stock, stirring over medium heat until the rice has completely absorbed it. You will repeat this step (slowly adding 1/2 cup of liquid at a time) for 6 cups worth of liquid. I use 5 1/2 cups chicken stock plus 1/2 cup of white wine to make 6 cups total. Betsy told me a story about how she was once at a professor's house during her undergrad and the guy made a big stink about how hard it is to make risotto and how easy it is to screw it all up unless you are Mr. Awesome Kitchen Guy and blah blah blah. Meanwhile the guy's wife is calmly making the entire rest of the dinner in the kitchen and this dude is going on about how hard it is to do the sole task he's taken on: the dreaded risotto. It isn't that hard. The only thing you can screw up is adding all the liquid at once. Don't do that. Be patient, add it slow, stir it and wait for it to absorb before adding more. That's all. After you have added your last 1/2 cup of liquid and everything is creamy and delicious, stir in a bunch of washed sorrel. De-stem it first and cut the leaves into thin strips. At this point, also stir in about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese, salt and fresh pepper to taste. Dump in about 3/4 cup of tiny green peas--I found mine frozen and labeled "petite pois" at Whole Foods. Turn off the heat and cover your risotto. The retained heat will steam your peas to perfection. Stir once before sevring to mix them in well.

St. Patrick's Day 2008

As usual, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by corning many pounds of brisket and inviting as many people as possible over to drink beer and eat. The party was early because March 17th has fallen on a Monday this year, which is a rough day to get all your friends drunk. The past 3 actual St. Patrick days have all fallen happily on party days (Thursday - Saturday) which really facilitated the drinking and corned beef extravaganzas. I do like to celebrate on the correct day. But, alas, leap year and the normal passing of time conspired to make the party on March 15th this year. Whatever, we still ate a lot, got drunk and wore green. As in all past years, Rick made his excellent Irish soda bread and I ended up corning about 12 pounds of brisket in the fridge for a week, then simmering it up with potatoes and cabbage. If you want details on the corning process, they can be found in last year's St. Patrick's Day post. This year I actually made a dessert: Guinness chocolate cupcakes with whiskey cream frosting. I made a double batch for the party and it produced an insane amount of cupcakes, so if you just want the usual 2 muffin tins worth (about 24 cupcakes), make sure you cut all amounts in half. Or you will be swimming in cupcakes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get out two very large bowls, a hand mixer, cooking spray and 4 12-cup muffin tins. If you don't have 4 muffin tins, you can either 1.) borrow from your neighbors, 2.) bake these in 2 batches (that's what I did) or 3.) cut the recipe in half. First the wet ingredients: in one of the big bowls and using your mixer, combine 2 12-ounce bottles of Guinness, 1 cup milk, 1 cup vegetable oil, and 2 tablespoons vanilla. When these are all mixed up together, beat in 6 eggs,one at a time, then mix in 1 1/2 cups sour cream. Now some dry ingredients: in your other big bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, 4 cups sugar, 5 cups flour, and 3 teaspoons baking soda. Make sure you get everything all mixed up well together--don't be lazy. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, using your hand mixer because it is easier than stirring. Get it all mixed up--it will be sort of thick and a delicious dark chocolatey color. But don't eat it yet! Spray your muffin tins really well with the cooking spray. You could also use little cupcake liner but I think they look more elegant as little cakes, so I just got the tins really greasy so that the cupcakes would pop right out after cooling. Try it! After you have prepped your tins, pour the cupcake batter in with a little space to spare right at the top. They won't raise too much. Stick them in the preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes, then haul them out and let cool in their tins. Like I said, if you use cooking spray or otherwise grease well, they should pop right out after cooling for about an hour. Here's a delicious frosting to make while your cupcakes are baking/cooling: beat 2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese with your mixer until it is smooth and fluffy. Slowly add in 2/3 cup heavy cream until fully incorporated then slowly add 1 one-pound box of confectioner's sugar. Keep beating until it is smooth, then add about 3 tablespoons whiskey, or to taste. You don't want it boozy but you do want a hint of it. When the cupcakes are cool, dollop them with the frosting, like a little hat on top. I also had these super cute little shamrock sprinkles from my last trip to Fante's in Philadelphia, so we put those on top. Ali and Tiffany were instrumental in the cupcake frosting process and Charlie was instrumental in the discovery of splitting open a cupcake and pouring Jameson over the halves before consuming. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Coq au vin blanc

Here is an easy coq au vin that is made with white wine instead of the more common red version. A Riesling would be particularly good, and in fact, there is a good recipe for chicken with Riesling in this month's Gourmet, but I am lazy so I used the run-of-mill Chardonnay hanging out in my fridge. Also it was Sunday and God doesn't like us to be able buy wine for our chicken on Sundays, so what can you do?

Get a chicken and have it cut into 8 or 10 pieces, whichever you prefer. If you don't usually ask your butcher to cut a chicken up, you can buy precut-up chicken pieces instead. Heat 1 tablespoon butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Shake up your chicken pieces with salt and pepper, then brown them in the hot oil-butter mixture. I did mine in batches--I really can't fit more than 4 or 5 chicken pieces in my pot at once, so just fit in what you can, pull them out and set aside. It takes about 8-10 minutes to brown each batch, flipping them over at least once so that both sides become a beautiful dark golden color. Set chicken aside, and at this point you should set your oven to preheat to 350 because this will all end up in there eventually. Chop 2 leeks into small pieces (just the white and light green parts) and swish them around in a bowl of water to clean all the dirt out. Leeks are always sandy and gritty so be sure to do that. Fish out the clean leek bits and dry them off, then add to your now-empty pot to sauté along with 2 more tablespoons butter and one small, minced yellow onion. When the onion and leeks are soft (about 8 minutes) add the chicken back in, golden-skin side up, along with about 3 carrots that you have peeled and sliced into matchstick pieces. Pour 1 cup white wine over all and allow the liquids to reduce over high heat for about 5 minutes. Cover the pot and stick it in your oven at 350 degrees for about half an hour, then pull it out and pour ½ cup heavy cream over everything. Serve the chicken pieces with the delicious cream-wine sauce ladled over the top.

Shredded brussels sprout sauté

In the past I have made a dish with purple cabbage, prosciutto and pine nuts that Melanie really likes, so I tried to do a variation on that theme with brussels sprouts the other day. It's sort of time consuming to shred the brussels sprouts by hand but if you have a glass of wine and someone to talk to it's not so bad. We had this along with a coq au vin made with white wine that I'll write about next.

I bought at least one pound of fresh brussels sprouts, washed them well and cut each one in half and then cut the halves cross-wise into thin slices. Because brussels sprouts are cabbagey and layered, the slices fall apart into a shredded heap which is perfect for sautéing and cooks much faster than whole sprouts. Melted 2 tablespoons butter in a large deep pan until hot and toasted ¼ cup pine nuts until they were golden. Removed pine nuts and set aside and wiped out the pan to remove any overly browned bits. Added in the shredded brussels sprouts and sautéed over medium-high heat for about 6 minutes, until they began to get soft and bright green, then added the pinenuts back in along with salt, pepper, and ¼ cup golden raisins. Continued to sauté all together for another 2 minutes, then removed from heat and mixed in a drizzle each of white balsamic vinegar and hazelnut oil.

Turkey roulade with chard filling

One of my new favorite things ever is roasting a turkey breast that has been rolled up around a delicious filling. I made a version of this a few weeks ago sort of by accident, but this time around it was quite intentional. I found the gorgeous chard at the Morningside farmer's market; it was the beautiful variety known as rainbow chard, with golden, red and white stems topped by perfect glossy green, early-spring leaves. I also found green garlic, which looks a lot like a bunch of scallions but retains the unmistakable pungency of garlic with a mellow, fresh flavor. These were both utilized in my roulade filling but you can substitute whatever dark leafy greens are available for the chard or minced onion and garlic if you do not have green garlic available.

First I prepared the filling for the roulade. I washed and chopped up a bunch of rainbow chard, making sure the stems were diced quite small, and then sliced the leaves into thin ribbons. Minced 1 bunch of green garlic (substitute ½ minced onion and 2 cloves minced garlic) and sautéed for 3 minutes in 3 tablespoons olive oil. If you are substituting regular onion, it may need more like 6-8 minutes to saute. Add ¼ cup pine nuts and continue to sauté until they have colored lightly, about 2 minutes. Add in the chopped chard and sauté until it is wilted, then add 2 tablespoons sherry and ¼ cup golden raisins. Sauté until the liquid has evaporated somewhat and the filling is not too wet, about 2 more minutes. Add salt and fresh black pepper to taste, then set aside. Take a boneless, whole turkey breast and pound the fat end a bit more flat. There is always a skinny pointy end and a fatter thicker end. I need a meat pounder because slapping around a turkey breast is rough on a girl's hands. Anyway, just try to get it a little bit more flattened out on the thick end. Lay your chard filling out down the center. If there is too much filling for the size of your turkey, don't overdo it, just keep the rest for another use (maybe tossed with pasta? delicious!). Wrap up your turkey breast around the filling, starting with the fatter end and use the skin if necessary to keep it all together. Cut 3 lengths of kitchen twine and use them to tie the roulade together to keep it rolled up. It should look pretty cute. Salt and pepper the top then pop it into the oven at about 400 degrees, flip it over after 20 minutes, flip it back over again after another 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 and let it roast for about an hour. Check the temperature after 40 minutes--depending on the size of your turkey breast it may be done sooner or later than that. Mine actually got pretty toasty, so I had to tent it with aluminum foil about halfway through to prevent scorching. You want the temperature to hit 165 degrees but you can take it out when it is 160 as it will rise while it sits out of the oven and that will prevent the roast from becoming too dry. I guess it could take up to 2 hours to be done if it is a large roast, so plan accordingly and be sure to use your meat thermometer. Slice it up and admire the lovely spirals of the chard stuffing.

I made roasted fingerling potatoes with rosemary to accompany the turkey roulade--it is an easy side, especially as you have the oven going already. Fingerlings are very cute and tiny and look nice when they are sliced lengthwise, like tiny golden boats. Slice them and toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper and 2 teaspoons dried rosemary. They can roast at any temperature and are done when they are golden and slightly crispy. Toss them often as they cook, which may take about 40 minutes.

Curried winter squash soup

Much like the last post, this is a recipe of seriously bright color. The batch I made last night featured my favorite winter squash, kabocha, but you can use whichever variety you like best or happen to have lying around the house. Butternut would probably be pretty good. My dad happened to be in town last night, swinging through with his jetsetting lifestyle to socialize with us for an quick evening before heading on his busy way. He said he liked the soup, so if it's good enough for an international xylose fermentation superstar, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

I sautéed 1 large minced onion in 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoon butter. When they were getting soft, I added in 1 teaspoon garam masala, 1 teaspoon yellow curry powder and a pinch of paprika and stirred it all up together. The onions continued to cook for about 10 more minutes. You want them to get very soft but not browned, so keep the heat on the low side. Meanwhile, I chopped in half and de-seeded one large kabocha squash. I peeled up the squash and cut it into small chunks of about 1 ½", then peeled 2 apples and cut them into the same size chunks. Stirred both the squash and the apples into the pot to cook alongside the onions for about 5 minutes, then added 3 cups of chicken stock. Brought it to a low simmer and let it cook until the apples and squash were quite tender, about 25 minutes. At this point I stirred in ½ cup of plain yogurt, ¼ cup sherry, a pinch of red pepper flakes, 2 teaspoons salt and a very healthy grinding of black pepper. Then I turned off the heat and got out my fantastic immersion blender that I love more than life itself, and blended hell out of the soup. It turned a sunshiney bright yellow with the curry and the squash and the flavor mellowed out beautifully with the yogurt. You may find it needs a touch more salt, so taste it to see. I allowed the now-smooth soup to chill out on a back burner covered at a low simmer until my dad showed up, then I added a couple tablespoons of finely minced parsley to finish.

Blanched winter vegetable salad

This is a cheatery recipe because it is really easy. There's nothing particularly seasonal about these vegetables--it's just that they're readily available in the wintertime (thanks southern hemisphere!). They taste crunchy and fresh when prepared this way, and the bright colors are a technicolor medicine for winter doldrums, so give it a shot.

Cut one small head of cauliflower into florets of no more than 1 ½" in size and set aside. Do the same with a head of broccoli, reserving the stalks for another use (I deeply love broccoli stalks and can't imagine throwing them away, in fact I used my reserve of them last night for a delicious brown rice-tofu-broccoli stalk stirfry). Take three large carrots, peel and cut into rounds of about ¾" in width. Try to get each vegetable cut into equal sizes. Get a big pot of water up to a hard boil on the stove. While you're waiting for it to boil, fill a bowl of water with cold cold water and at least one tray of ice cubes. You are making an ice bath for your veggies! When the water is boiling merrily, put your broccoli florets in for exactly one minute. Fish them out with a wire mesh colander (or whatever, just don't drain the boiling water because you are going to keep using it) and dump the broccoli into the ice bath. This will instantly stop their cooking which will preserve the crunchy fresh flavor and the brilliant green color. Swirl them around to cool off, then fish them out and place in the fridge. Meanwhile, hopefully your water in the pot on the stove is back up to a boil again, so add in your cauliflower and let it boil for just under 2 minutes, then repeat the fish out/dump in ice bath/stick in fridge routine that you just did for the broccoli. Do the same exact thing for your carrot rounds, also letting them boil for not-quite 2 minutes. You might need to add a few more ice cubes to the ice bath to keep it chilled between vegetables. When all the vegetables are done, store them in the fridge until it's time for dinner. Serve the mixed vegetables either tossed with a delicious vinaigrette or drizzled with the Trader Joe's goddess dressing (it has tahini in it!). This also makes a great lunchbox addition or colorful finger food for little kids.

Broiled shrimp

I actually think the name of this recipe should be Wintertime Shrimp because Byron's reaction to "do you wanna come over and eat shrimp?" was something like "Shrimp? What? It's February! Shrimp are for summertime!" Hopefully he was convinced and maybe these will be the kind of shrimp you can see yourself consuming in the depths of winter (actually it was, like, 65 degrees out, so it's not actually all that cold). Unlike the shrimp Byron was thinking of, these aren't cooked up with potatoes, corn and sausage like a low country boil. They're still in the shell so you must peel-and-eat, which makes for a fun communal meal (actually, Josh LeF. described it as "primal" so maybe that's it). Also, all the stuff you broil the shrimp in makes an amazing buttery sauce to dip bread into and that might be the best part of all.

I got about 4 pounds of shrimp for 6 people. I bought 2 pounds of the 21/25 counts and 2 pounds of the 26/30 counts. I probably would have gotten all of the bigger size (easier to peel) but they were running out. 4 pounds of shrimp in these sizes will require the use of 2 baking pans (the jelly roll style cookie sheets with a lip on the edges) and you'll probably have to do them in 2 batches in your broiler. Obviously, if you have fewer people and only do 2 pounds, you can fit it all on one sheet and make them in one batch. Wash your shrimp really well and spread them out on your baking sheets. Drizzle each batch with 1/4 cup olive oil, then get your black pepper grinder and grind pepper all over them. Like ALOT of pepper, just keep grinding and grinding until they are liberally covered in a blanket of pepper. Sprinkle salt over the top,probably 2 teaspoons per sheet of shrimp. Then pour about ½ cup of Worcestershire sauce over each batch. Squeeze the juice from 3 lemons over each batch (a total of 6 lemons for 2 batches). Cut about 3 sticks of butter into chunks and dot the shrimp with the butter pieces so that you have at least 1 ½ sticks of butter per batch. OK, so you have shrimp, black pepper, a little salt, worcestershire, lemon, and butter. Now stick it under the broiler for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cover your table or wherever you'll be eating in newspaper and get out a bowl to put empty shells into. When the shrimp are done, haul them out of the broiler (if you're making two batches, stick the second one in now) and pour the shrimp and all the delicious sauce that has formed beneath them into a large bowl. Make sure you have one or two loaves of good crusty french bread to dip in the sauce, try to stick it in the oven to heat up ahead of time. Call your friends over and begin to eat. You'll probably burn your fingers but it is worth it.

The only accompaniment these delicious shrimp need, besides the bread, might be a good green salad. I had beautiful lettuce from the Morningside farmer's market, with watermelon radishes, cucumbers and a hazelnut oil-champagne vinegar dressing. We had discussed ahead of time that Abita beer is proabably the most delicious libation for shrimp, so we had those and Jeremy also brought a really nice pinot noir. And we drank a bunch of other red wine because that is how I roll, no matter what I am eating for dinner. Unfortunately, you will probably not be able to replicate the awesomeness of having Sara as one of your shrimp eating guests. She brought the most amazing chocolate bundt cake and it was ridiculously good.

Golden risotto with chicken and butter beans

More risotto! 2008 has a theme thus far. I suspect I'll back off after this go-round, but this was a great way to use my roast chicken leftovers. I wanted something that was creamy and delicious, like wintertime comfort food. And risotto totally delivers. It sort of makes me think of an old-fashioned chicken-and-rice recipe. If you don't have butter beans you should use tiny green peas, in fact it might actually be better with those, a little more elegant.

Begin with a whole lot of chicken fat on the bottom of a pan. I was trying to make gribenes, which are chicken skin crisps fried in chicken fat. It was just for fun, because I had a lot of chicken fat left over and a whole chicken skin so I was trying it out. Didn't really work, but I had a tablespoon of chicken fat in my pot afterwards and some delicious golden chicken fat sticking, so I just started my risotto there. Sautéed one small minced onion in the fat until soft and golden, then added 1 cup arborio rice. Continued to sauté for about 3 minutes then began slowly adding 3 ½ cups of chicken stock. As before with cooking a risotto, add the liquid only ½ cup at a time, stirring until it is all absorbed. If you have some white wine, replace a ½ cup of the chicken stock with wine--I didn't have any open on hand so I didn't do that this time. This will not be pure white like a risotto sautéed in butter and wherein you don't allow the onions to color. That's why I'm calling it a golden risotto--possibly it is unorthodox, but whatever, it's tasty. Anyway, after your risotto has absorbed 2 cups of liquid, stir in a ½ cup of butter beans or tiny green peas along with about 1 cup of chicken meat, cut into small ½" pieces. Stir these in along with the remaining 1 ½ cup of liquid, still going only ½ cup at a time. When you are down to your last ½ cup of liquid, add in ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese, then continue adding liquid until all has been absobed and the rice is creamy and delicious, which it should be by that point. Season with fresh black pepper and enjoy.

Lacinato kale, watermelon radishes and baby turnips

Actually, this post should be entitled "I am a Late Adopter: The Delights of Morningside Market." My friend Katie pointed out to me, as others have done, that there is a really great farmers market up North Highland. I haven't been and I haven't been and finally I saw firsthand some of Katie's vegetables procured there and I went immediately. And guess what--it is indeed great, although not large. There are about 5 stalls, most are vegetables, there seemed like a bread one and then also a meat one, which is really exciting. I don't know if there will be more in the warmer months or not. Anyway, I found these wonderful tiny turnips and gorgeous dark lacinato kale...they are so tender and perfect. And these amazing radishes! Outside they look like big tough balls--they're about the size of baseballs, which is large for a radish--but when you slice them they are beautiful, bright red with a pale green rind. They look like watermelons, especially if you slice them into half moons. I drizzled them with hazelnut oil (olive oil is perfectly fine too) and sprinkled with salt and pepper for an appetizer when Charlie and Colleen came over.

The lacinato kale was very delicate and small--the leaves were not longer than 3". I sort of braised/sautéed them, first swirling around in a hot pan with olive oil, then adding a tiny bit of minced garlic, and then about 2 tablespoons each pinenuts and dried cranberries. Then I added about ¼ cup chicken stock and cooked until it was absorbed and the kale was soft but still bright green. It would have been even more delicious if I had toasted the pinenuts first, so be sure to do that if you think of it.

The baby turnips were wonderful. They had long, perfect greens attached so I sliced those off, leaving about 1" atop. This was at a different dinner than the kale so I cooked up the turnip greens pretty much exactly the same way as described above. The turnips themselves I tossed together in a pan with a head's worth of peeled, whole garlic cloves and 2 teaspoons of sugar. These roasted at 400 degrees underneath a chicken that was roasting already for dinner. It's important to remove a lot of the drippings before you put turnips in the roasting pan beneath the chicken, otherwise the vegetables will get too greasy. You may also need to use the baster to draw some of the juices out as they go along. They'll cook up happily along with the chicken--they need about 40 minutes, give the pan a shake now and then to redistribute.

Chicken milanese

This is the sort of thing my grandmother always seems to be making us for lunch at her house, except I think she usually uses veal cutlets rather than chicken. I think it's completely delicious and for some reason it always feels quite genuinely Italian to me, probably because both my mother and my grandmother can make these in their sleep as their most basic meat preparation skill. I could eat them any day of the week they're so tasty and so much like comfort food. For a variation, they'd be good on top of a salad of lightly vinagretted baby greens. The most important thing to have on hand is the lemon--it wouldn't seem authentic without it.

I had 3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts on hand, you can make as many as you like. Take each chicken breast and slice them in half lengthwise as evenly as possible with a sharp knife to make 2 thin cutlets. You might find this easier to do if you stick them in the freezer for 5 minutes first. After halving the chicken breasts, flatten them, either with a meat pounder (which I do not own, sadly) or with the palm of your hand (which I do own). Get all the cutlets to an even width. Combine 2 tablespoons water and one egg in one bowl, beat them together and set aside. In another bowl combine ¾ cup of fine bread crumbs with salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons minced parsley. Get a skillet ready and hot with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Dip each chicken cutlet into the egg-water mixture, and next dredge it in the breadcrumb mixture. Sauté in the hot oil until very nicely browned, then flip over and brown the other side, then remove to a plate. You'll probably need to do these in batches and might have to keep adding oil. When all the cutlets are done, serve them with large wedges of lemons and insist that everybody squeeze them liberally over their chicken before eating. Do not take no for an answer.

Farro risotto with cremini mushrooms

Farro is a type of Italian wheat--it is very long and elegant looking with a distinct nutty flavor. It remains firm after cooking, unlike wheat berries or spelt, and this texture makes it particularly enjoyable. I had never seen it just hanging out on store shelves before but last week I found it at the DeKalb market and so picked some up to try making it at home myself. Because it has a very hard exterior, you are supposed to soak it before cooking, so if you remember, do that. I of course did not remember, but it turned out OK. This is cooked like a risotto, but unlike a real risotto it doesn't get super creamy. It is, however, incredibly delicious.

Rinse well 1 cup of farro and boil it in about 8 cups water for 30 minutes. Drain the farro and set aside. Melt 2 tablespoons butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 1 package of sliced cremini mushrooms and sauté until they are golden, about 8-10 minutes. Add 1 clove minced garlic (or 2 minced shallots instead would be tasty if you have them, which I did not) and continue to sauté 1 minute. Add in the preboiled farro and 1 cup white wine. Simmer until almost all liquid evaporates, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add in a total of 2 cups chicken stock; stir the liquid in slowly, ½ cup at a time, simmering until each ½ cup addition of liquid is absorbed. Do this until all 2 cups are added in and the farro is tender, which will take about 15 minutes. At the end, if you like, stir in a couple tablespoons of parmesan cheese and a little more butter, plus salt and pepper.

We also had these great sirloin steaks that Melanie's parents had sent them around Christmastime. Mel's parents are very smart--they know the best gift of all is a freezer full of meat. I made a port wine sauce for the steaks--pretty much just 3 tablespoons melted butter with 1 clove minced garlic, then add a cup of port and bring it to a simmer, then add in 1 cup chicken stock (better with beef stock but I didn't have any) and then boiled until it all reduced down to 1 cup and got thick. We also had roasted green beans, mostly because I wanted to try making a vinagrette with this hazelnut oil I'd purchased. Hazelnut oil is amazing. It smells fantastic and the flavor is delicate yet full at the same time. I roasted a pound of trimmed green beans in a 425 oven for 8-10 minutes until they were bright green but with a few caramel patches on them. Then, while they were still hot, tossed the beans in a vinagrette made with 1 tablespoon champagne vinegar, 3 tablespoons hazelnut oil, 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard, salt and pepper. It was great.

Mixed roasted root vegetables

This weekend we celebrated Burns Night at Charlie and Colleen's house. This Scottish holiday traditionally features a haggis, in order to commemorate the stirring Robert Burns poem "Address to a Haggis" (if you want to read it, you can find it here). It's sort of ridiculous good fun and we tried to keep things as Scottish as possible. Charlie made meatloaf instead (a particularly fantastic one) but Katie made a vegetarian haggis so that we could sort of get it right, but without all the intestines and sheep stomachs that go into real haggis. I brought some things for a charcuterie plate--pâté, salami and a delicious goat cheese called Purple Haze that has lavender and wild fennel pollen in it. I also made a batch of particularly well thought out roasted root vegetables. Usually I just chuck whatever I feel like cutting up into the oven without too much thought, but this time I actually spent a lot of time picking out veggies and considering their needs, so it really turned out pretty well. As things are wont to do, if you just take a little patience and time with them. The More You Know!

I selected 1 large rutabaga, 1 large turnip, 3 parsnips, 1 garnet sweet potato, a bag of tiny literally pebble-sized Yukon Gold potatoes and a bag of miniature carrots that still had a bit of green on top so they looked whole but were only maybe 2 ½" long. The tiny potatoes and carrots were really cute and I think they elevated this basic dish into something a little more festive for a special occasion. Oddly, this time I ended up going to Whole Foods for my vegetable shopping rather than my beloved DeKalb Market and they seem to cultivate their own adorable tiny carrots, so if you want to find them yourself, try looking there. I sliced up a bit more than half each of my enormous turnip, rutabaga and sweet potato saving the rest for something else. I ended up using half each of the bag of tiny Yukon Golds (picking out the ones that were tiniest of all) and adorable tiny carrots. You want to keep a balance between the vegetables and also I think it would have made way too much. I left the carrots and Yukon Golds whole, sliced the parsnips and sweet potatoes into matchsticks and cut the rutabaga and turnip into half-moon slices about ½" thick. The goal is to make sure everything is more or less the same width so it will cook at an even rate but also to keep some visual interest with different cuts between the veggies. Tossed all the vegetables together with about 10 whole cloves peeled garlic (it will become soft and mellow as it roasts), 5 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon each red pepper flakes and cumin, 2 teaspoons salt and a healthy grinding of fresh black pepper over all. I took them over to Charlie & Colleen's, divided them into 2 pans, and roasted for a little while along with the meatloaf and vegetarian haggis at about 350 (I think?). Then after the other things were removed from the oven we cranked it up to 425 and continued to roast. They probably went for about 20 minutes at the lower temperature and then about another 25 at the high one. Shake the pans or stir them often to redistribute the vegetables to ensure even cooking.

Chicken satay, sort of

Like I said, I had all this leftover peanut sauce in the fridge from the soba noodle thing the other day so I decided that we'd have chicken satay at some point. Melanie seemed really enthusiastic about it when I broached the topic at the Tupperware party that we all attended (and, no, that's not code for a sex toy party, we actually went to a real, live tupperparty with a tupperlady and everything. Ariane can verify). So I gave it a shot.

I had just shy of 2 pounds worth of boneless, skinless chicken breast. Mark Bittman says that chicken thighs work better for satay because they don't dry out and he's probably right but I happened to have breasts so breasts it was (whee!). Sliced them into thin strips of about 1 ½ " width (this is easier if they are a little bit frozen so you can stick them in the freezer for five ten minutes). Put the strips into a big (non-tupper) plastic bowl for marinating and added the juice from one lime, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, 2 tablespoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, 2 crushed cloves garlic, a drizzle of rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons minced cilantro, salt and pepper. Tossed it all really well together and left it in the fridge for about 5 hours, giving it a stir every now and then to distribute the marinade. When it was time to cook dinner, I confess I did not end up putting the chicken strips on bamboo skewers and grilling them. That would have been awesome and delicious and maybe I'll do that one of these days. But I hate getting the grill all going just for one little thing and I didn't have any veggies or anything else to use the grill for so I skipped it. Also, as it turns out and as Jeremy later pointed out, my grill is actually sitting on their porch right now, all covered in street grime. So, whatever. I got my cast iron grill pan and heated it up super hot with a thin film of sesame oil on it. Lay the strips of chicken on the very hot grill pan and let them go about 3-4 minutes per side, at least until they were well-marked with brown grill lines. My grill pan is not huge so I had to do this in several batches, keeping the finished strips warm in the oven. I heated up the remaining peanut sauce (about ¾ cup) very gently with a few tablespoons of water whisked in to smooth it out. I sort of got careless and it burned on the bottom because I was toasting sesame seeds for the broccoli and got distracted. Don't let it happen to you! Poured the peanut sauce into a small bowl in the center of a platter surrounded by the grilled chicken strips and let everybody grab their own and pour the sauce over the top. Not as much fun as if it had been on skewers, but pretty delicious anyway.

Peanut sauce with soba noodles and cucumber-pepper relish

Last night Ali and Nik came over for dinner as part of our ongoing automotive-work-for-food exchange program. Nik is gifted with knowledge of diesel engines and a deep understanding of the peculiarities of my particular VW, as he has the exact same one. Apparently one dinner is worth one fuel filter; labor is free because he enjoys it. It's a good deal, especially for Ali because she doesn't have to do any car work at all but still gets to eat. Last night we had sesame salmon in a soy-orange sauce (I think I've written about it before) and soba noodles tossed with peanut sauce and topped with a tangy cucumber-orange pepper relish. It's a good addition for peanut noodles because they can get sort of overly sweet and unctuous if you try to eat a whole pile of them; a spicy, tangy and crunchy counterpoint is sort of needed to go with.

Start by making the cucumber mixture because it needs at least 30 minutes to marinate. Wash, de-seed and chop one orange bell pepper into small ½" chunks. Peel one hothouse cucumber (also known, for some reason, as english cucumbers, they're longer and thinner than the normal kind and usually are found wrapped in plastic. Use a regular one if you can't find this type), and chop it into similarly-sized chunks and toss together in a large mixing bowl with the orange pepper. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 pinch red pepper flakes, 2 small cloves crushed garlic, 2 teaspoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons finely minced cilantro, salt, pepper and about 3-4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar. Mix it up really well and let it sit at room temperature until it’s time to eat. Go over and mix it up now and then while you are getting everything else ready so all the pieces of cucumber and pepper get a chance to marinate. For the record, I decided after the fact that a little bit of chopped red onion would be delicious in this and am sad that I didn’t think of it in time to add it in. Try mixing in about ¼ cup—the marinating time will make it mild and delicious.

For the peanut sauce, I used my amazing new immersion blender. You can make the sauce by hand too or in a regular blender, but I’m in love with my new gadget and want to spend all my time with it. It comes with this mixing vessel—sort of a long, tall plastic canister that you can put stuff into for effective blending, so I just made the peanut sauce in that. If you don’t have an immersion blender (or if you do have one but no nifty blender container came with it) just dump everything in a big bowl. Peanut sauce is pretty easy and can be tweaked to suit you, so taste as you go and add more soy sauce or garlic or whatever if you think it needs it. Combine the following: 1 cup smooth peanut butter, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon red chili-garlic paste (you can find it in the Asian foods aisle of the store usually, otherwise just use red pepper flakes), 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger and ½ cup hot water. Blend the shit out of it with your mighty immersion blender…or puny human hands. You might find that you need to add more hot water, or vinegar or soy as you go along—add up to another ½ cup liquid with few repercussions. Boil a package of soba noodles (or really whatever kind of Asian noodle you like). When they are al dente, drain lightly so as to keep some water clinging to the noodles, immediately return them to the pot and toss with about ¾ cup of the sauce. Add more sauce if you think it needs it and sprinkle with black and white sesame seeds. Serve with the cucumber-pepper relish to go on top or right next to it or something. Leftover peanut sauce is really useful to have in the fridge—you can always toss it with more cooked noodles for a quick dinner or lunch, or use it to dip fried tofu in or make grilled chicken satay strips. You won’t regret it!

Squash risotto and red pepper-mascarpone dip

Last night was a night of firsts! I cooked some things I had never made before, I used a brand-new kitchen gadget, and our friend Sara came over for dinner for the first time (she brought one Josh Le F. with her, but he was old news, having been over before and therefore not a first). As I have mentioned before, I am really not a gadget person but I had been wanting an immersion blender for some time and my dad totally came through on the Christmas present front with a very nice KitchenAid one. So I wanted to try it out and made an interesting dip for appetizer.

Combined one tablespoon of sherry, salt and pepper with 4 roasted red peppers and 2 healthy tablespoons mascarpone cheese in a container appropriate for immersion blending. Got out the immersion blender, marveled at its power tool-like structure and blended hell out of the cheese-pepper mixture. I only used it at a 5 power level, but that sucker will go up to a 9. A 9, y'all! It turns a lovely pastel shade of orange-y red, so this has the added benefit of being a really pretty appetizer as well. Pour into a bowl, sprinkle with some parsley and serve with robust crackers.

I also wanted to make a squash risotto. Actually, that's how plans for dinner started to begin with--I had a couple squash lying around and I thought it might be tasty. I had about 2 pounds worth of small, sweet winter squash. It wasn't my usual favorite kabocha squash, but I wish it had been. I cut them in half, de-seeded, and roasted them until very soft (about 1 hour), then scooped out the flesh and set it aside for later. Begin the risotto itself by sautéing one medium minced onion in 2 tablespoons butter. Don't let them brown at all but get them nice and soft--about 6-8 minutes. Add 2 cloves minced garlic and 1 ½ cups arborio rice. Sauté for 3 minutes--again, do not brown--then begin to add in chicken stock. You will need 5 ½ cups chicken stock and ½ cup white wine, making 6 cups of liquid total. Add the liquid to your rice ½ cup at a time, stirring each ½ cup addition until it is totally absorbed before adding in the next ½ cup. Sara and I discussed this--there is some contention amongst the risotto-producing Italians as to whether one stirs constantly, stirs just occasionally or stirs not at all...but I went ahead and stirred pretty much constantly. For one thing, I think it works well and for another, I sort of enjoy it. It is meditative and fun and everybody is hanging out chatting in the kitchen anyway, so why not? So after you have added in all 6 cups of liquid (you will find it is a bit liquidy at the end, which is fine because you are about to add more stuff in), stir in the roasted squash from earlier, 1 tablespoon minced fresh sage, salt, pepper, and at least 4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese. I actually had too much sage in the one I made last night (probably something like 2 tablespoons or more) but it gave a funny alkaline flavor, so I would say keep it to only 1 tablespoon. I really like sage but I think also that it stands up better to my beloved kabocha squash rather than the (pale, watery) one I was using last night, so that was part of the problem too. The lesson? Never try anything new once you have found your dream squash.

We had these massive porkchops also--they were really thick-cut and juicy. I just seared them 2 at a time, in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat, on my favorite cast-iron skillet, about 4 minutes per side. Then I transferred them to the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes, basically until the internal temperature rose to 160 degrees. I poured any collected juices from the oven dish back into the pan that I had seared the chops in and stirred it around over medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons sherry and ½ tablespoon butter, making sure to bring up any delicious porky bits that had stuck to the pan. Added 1 tablespoon minced parsley and used it as a sauce over the porkchops. We also had broccoli rapini that I sautéed and tossed in the juice and zest from 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon capers, salt, pepper, and 3 tablespoons olive oil.

Black-eyed pea and lentil chili

On New Year's Day in the American south it is good luck to eat black-eyed peas. On New Year's Day in Italy it is good fortune to eat lentils. So this year I made a chicken chili with black-eyed peas and lentils and called it Double Luck chili. Maybe it will bring some good things my way for 2008.

I started the night before by soaking 1 ½ cups black-eyed peas in a bowl of water. As I've said before, I don't think the soaking step is really necessary but it does make the cooking time go faster, so if you remember to do it ahead of time it probably helps. I drained them the next day then covered them with fresh water in a pot along with 1 tablespoon epazote, and boiled for about 45 minutes. When they are soft, take them off heat, drain and set aside. In my dutch oven I heated 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat and sautéed 1 medium, minced onion until soft and golden brown. Then I added 4 cloves minced garlic and sautéed another 2 minutes. Cleared a space in the center of the pot, added a tablespoon more olive oil and when it was hot dumped in 2 teaspoons chile powder and 1 teaspoon cumin. Let the spices bloom in the hot oil for a minute, then stirred up everything together. I de-seeded and minced one fresh poblano pepper and one fresh long, hot pepper and added them into the pot to sauté as well. I also had 2 dried ancho chilies, so I de-seeded those as well and sliced them into thin strips before adding to the mixture in the pot. I de-seeded all these peppers because I was worried they would be too hot, but it actually turned out to be pretty tame heat-wise, so if you want go ahead and leave some of the seeds in to ramp it up a bit. You can use whatever peppers you like--jalapeno or something would be fine. The dried chiles give it a nice smoky flavor so it's good to find a few of those for sure. After sautéeing together the peppers, garlic, onion and spices for a few minutes, I added in about 5 cups of chicken stock, a bouillon cube, 1 ¼ cup dried lentils, the cooked black-eyed peas and a 6 ouce can of tomato paste. Stirred this all up well together, brought to a boil and allowed to simmer for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile I chopped up 1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast into small 1" chunks, then added into the chili. Let everything cook up together for another 30 minutes or until the lentils were soft and the chicken cooked through. At this point, I stirred in 2 tablespoons of minced cilantro and 1 tablespoon minced parsley. The chili got to be a pretty good, thick-ish consistency but you may wish to add more stock or water to thin it out if it boils down too much for your taste. I also made elbow pasta to serve it over because I sort of like macaroni in my chili. Shredded white cheddar is delicious to put on top, so maybe you should do that too.

I made a jícama salad to go with, as well as cornbread. I think I have already written down the cornbread recipe, but the jícama thing is new. Melanie really liked it. She said it was refreshing and thought it went really well with her wine. In case you've never seen one, jícama (pronounce it "hee-kah-mah") is a really ugly, roundish root vegetable. It's pretty big and brown and usually waxy on the outside. But you just peel it and then inside it is crisp and sweet and wonderful to eat raw. You can shred it, but I just cut it into thin matchsticks. I peeled one carrot into long strips, then cut the strips down to 2" lengths and tossed them together with the jícama, juice from 1 lime, salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. It made a crunchy, sweet and tangy salad that contrasts well with a bowl of chili.

Happy new year!

Prime rib roast and saffron pudding

For Christmas this year my mother said she wanted to make "something classic American." On Christmas Eve, we usually try to approximate the traditional Sicilian seven fish dinner. It's not just a clever name: it means you literally eat seven different fishes during the Christmas Eve meal, although sometimes people interpret it as to make seven different seafood dishes. We didn't really manage to do it, I think we only got up to 4 or 5 different fish; pasta with clams, a pasta with sardines, maybe some salmon somewhere, shrimp in the appetizer...don't really remember. My mom said it was OK that many of our fish were actually crustaceans but I think it means that we're all probably going to hell. Oh, in case you are wondering, the reason you eat seven fishes is because it represents the seven sacraments of the Church, or maybe to represent the seven sins or possibly the seven days it took Mary and Joe to get to Bethlehem...yeah, nobody really knows. But for Christmas Day dinner, my mom abandoned the mysticism and we did the real American thing with meat and potatoes. We went a little nutty at dessert though, with a saffron milk pudding with a citrus-pomegranate sauce. Can't abandon your roots.

My mother procured an 8 pound prime rib roast. It was pretty fatty on the outside but you don't want to trim it because it needs the fat to baste itself as it renders out in the oven. We put it on a v-shaped roasting rack that went inside a large roasting pan, let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, and stuck it in the oven at 400 degrees. Notice that we did not salt the meat at all. We poured about 1/2 cup of red wine over the top after about 45 minutes of cook time. NOTE: The better the wine the better the roast! Don't listen to my mother who believes in using wine for cooking that you wouldn't dream of drinking! If the alcohol burns away, all that is left is the flavor, right? So...why use the bad stuff? It doesn't really matter in a situation where you are just pouring a little bit over a roast but then you might as well just use whatever you are drinking while cooking (you are drinking while cooking, right?). Anyway. Don't be cheap. I turned the roast around in the oven every 30 minutes or so to keep it evenly cooking. After 1 1/2 hours at 400 degrees, we turned the temperature down to 350 and let it roast for another 1 hour and 45 minutes. Pull it out and let it rest for about 20-30 minutes, then carved it up. I took the roasting pan that had collected the drippings and red wine for basting, and stuck it over two burners on the stovetop. Added 1/3 cup of red wine, 3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Brought it up to a boil, stirring rapidly, and let it reduce somewhat--about 3-5 minutes. This makes a easy, delicious sauce for the roast and whatever else.

While the roast was going, I sliced in half 1 1/2 pounds of brussels sprouts and tossed them on a baking sheet with 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, salt, pepper, 2 teaspoons sugar and a teeny pinch of red pepper flakes. Put them cut side down on the baking sheet and put them in the oven at the same temperature as the roast. They went along merrily for about 20 minutes, then after the roast got taken out, I stirred the sprouts around, turned the temperature up to 425, and let them roast quickly for another 8-10 minutes. They are done when they are browned in spots on top and caramelized on the cut edges. We had roasted a ton of chestnuts and I made Francesca help me peel them. I then chopped about 1 cup worth of the chestnuts up into chunks and tossed them together with the roasted brussels spouts and about 2 teaspoons of white balsamic vinegar and a smidge more olive oil before serving. It was really delicious. We also made mashed potatoes. The only difference between these and my usual yukon gold mashed potatoes is that I mixed in about 2 tablespoons of horseradish condiment, which really makes it go well with a rich prime roast. My mother also made a salad with mixed greens, green apple slices, and olives.

The dessert was really interesting--we wanted to make something exciting but light so we settled on a beautiful citrus-saffron pudding. We doubled the recipe and took a few other liberties, but here is the basic idea. It will make just about enough for 10 people, but not in a big American dessert kind of way. Soak 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads in 3 tablespoons boiling water. Combine 3 cups milk, 2 cups heavy cream and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stir it until the sugar is all dissolved. Remove it from heat and stir in the saffron threads and water that it was soaking in. Stir 2 packets of unflavored gelatin into the hot milk mixture (we had some trouble with this, we originally used only 1 1/2 packets and it wasn't enough. Learn from our mistakes) and let it cool down to room temperature, then pour it into whatever serving dish you plan to use and refrigerate it for between 6-8 hours. I'm not sure how long it really needs to take--the original recipe calls for you to put the pudding into individual serving dishes or molds but we used a big communal dish so it took a bit longer to gel up than it would have in individual dishes. It would be so cute in little personal cups though so you should do that if you aren't as lazy as I am. While it is chilling, make the sauce. Combine the juice from 2 sweet oranges with 1/4 cup pomegranate juice, the juice from 2 lemons and 1/2 cup Vincotto (a dark, supersweet Italian vinegar) in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Stir in at least 2 teaspoons honey, let it boil hard for about 1 minute, then take it off the heat. I then stirred in 2 tablespoons sweet marsala; the recipe actually called for Grand Marnier but my mother refused to buy a big bottle of it for such a small amount. For some reason I couldn't find a smaller container at the liqour store and so cheapness reigned once more. I encourage you to use it though, it would certainly be a better choice--if you use it, double the amount to 4 tablespoons instead of 2. Let it cool to room temperature, then store it in the fridge until it's time to eat dessert. Seve the pudding with a spoonful of the sauce over the top. Here are some notes on the pudding--the recipe actually called for blood oranges (my mother calls them "bloody oranges" which is HILARIOUS and sort of gross if you think about it), so if you want to, use 4 of those instead of the regular oranges and omit the pomegranate juice. Also, we decided that an aromatic note of cardamom would be excellent in this--add in 1/2 teaspoon with the hot milk mixture if you think you'd like to try it that way. There's a lot of potential for experimentation with this recipe. Also, if you don't want to call it pudding, you can say you are making a "fior di latte," as that is the Italian name for this kind of dessert. Impress your friends!

Gingersnaps and shortbread

I'm at my parent's house for the holidays and there is an unbelievable quantity of snow. Not to mention how damn cold it is. So my mother and I stayed indoors yesterday and made a couple really good cookies. My mom has a stand mixer so these were an easier time to make than they would have been just by hand.

First we tried to make some gingersnaps because Mom found a recipe on the flipside of a lid that was on a container of crystallized ginger. We made a few modifications. First beat together 3/4 cup of softened butter with 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup molasses. Dump in 1 egg and beat it into the mixture. Mix 2 teaspoons baking soda really well with 2 cups flour, about 1/2 teaspoon salt, at least 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and about 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves.

Here is a little one-act play that I like to call Mom's Old Cloves:

Mom, brandishing a dusty aquamarine canister: "I have ground cloves!"
Me: "How old are those?"
Mom: "They were a wedding shower present!"
Me, to the dog: "Wedding shower present? Her wedding shower?"

My mother has been married for 33 years. Moving on.

Dump the dry flour mixture into the wet mixture and beat in along with 1/2 cup of crystallized ginger that you have cut up into teeny chunks. Mix it all up really well. If it's too goopy for you to mess with you can refrigerate it for half an hour to make it easier to handle. We just went ahead and rolled it into 1" balls and put them on baking sheets. Don't squish them down. My mom kept doing that and I had to slap her hands to make her quit. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Let them cool on racks. They'll be more crispy if you chill the dough before baking but we liked them soft.

We also made a shortbread recipe that mom found in the local paper, which I am including here because I have never made shortbread before. Mix in a large bowl 2 1/4 cup flour with 3/4 cup slivered almonds, 3 tablespoons poppyseeds, and 1/2 teaspoon salt (Mom: "I have never heard of poppyseeds and almonds together!"). In another bowl, hopefully the workbowl of your supersweet KitchenAid mixer but it's OK if it's not, add together 2 sticks of softened butter, 1 cup sugar, and 3 tablespoons honey. Beat together until fluffy, then add 2 egg yolks and the zest from 2 oranges (my mom's zester SUCKS, it is not up to Microplane standards AT ALL. That is what she is getting for her birthday, now that I know the sad state of affairs). Beat in until smooth. Slowly add in your flour/poppyseed/almond mixture until it has all been fully incorporated. Here's the fun part. Split your dough in two and plop each half onto a sheet of wax paper. Roll it and shape it to form a 12" rectangular log. Wrap it up in the wax paper and stick it in the fridge for 2 hours or more (my mother found this directive ridiculous and so we just stuck it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. I'm pretty sure that worked just fine too, so do whichever works better for your schedule). Haul it out of fridge or freezer and slice the logs into thin, 1/8" slices. Bake them on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets in a pre-heated 350 degree oven until the edges are golden brown (about 12-15 minutes). You don't want them to brown all over, just the edges. The bottoms will be lightly golden as well. Cool on racks. The recipe also indicated a simple glaze (whisk 1 cup powdered sugar with vanilla and 1 tablespoon milk) for the edges and to decorate with festive suagr sprinkles, but I think these are actually better without any embellishment. Maybe if you added citrus to the glaze to make it a little piquant and referential, and definitely skip the sprinkles. Our container of red and green jimmies was seriously from the year I was born.

Spinach rice

This is like risotto for losers. It's pretty easy and is great if you feel lazy because it doesn't really use a traditional risotto technique or anything. I made this last night with roasted chicken and also this red cabbage-bacon-cranberry-pine nut thing that I made last year. It's in the 2006 posts, if you are interested. But I don't think I've ever written about spinach rice before, even though it is one of my standards, so here you go:

Take a big bunch of spinach (I use the flat-leaf kind rather than crinkly) and cut off the stems. Slice into strips or chop it up. Wash the spinach really really well--it is often muddy or gritty. You can dump it into a sink full of water, swish it around, and then dry it off well. I usually put it through the salad spinner, which I consider to be one of the rare kitchen gadgets that is actually worth owning. Anyway, chop and clean your spinach and set aside. Sauté 1 small minced onion in at least 1 tablespoon butter--since I was roasting a chicken, I actually ended up using the chicken fat from the bottom of the pan rather than just butter. You could use olive oil instead but some kind of fat is necessary. When the onion is soft and golden, add in 1 ½ cup short grain rice. I usually rinse the rice first but if you would like the consistency to be more starchy and risotto-like, don't rinse it at all. Sauté the rice with the onion for about 2 minutes, until the grains are sort of clear looking but not browned. Slowly add in 3 cups of chicken stock (or you could use a good vegetable stock), stirring it in well until it is up to a light boil. Turn it down to a simmer, cover and let the rice absorb all the cooking liquid--about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large pan, sauté 3 cloves minced garlic in olive oil (or butter or chicken fat) until golden then add a pinch red pepper flakes. Add in your cleaned, chopped spinach and toss with the garlic and pepper flakes over medium-high heat until it is all wilty. It will go from being a huge pile of raw spinach to, like, maybe a cup of cooked down greens. A fascinating thing to watch. After it is cooked down, let it sit a minute and then pour off any of the liquid that has accumulated, unless you like green spinach water. When the rice is all cooked, stir it around then add in the cooked spinach and mix it thoroughly so the spinach is all distributed and the rice is kind of green. Remove from heat and add the juice of one lemon and as much lemon zest as you feel like peeling off. You can never have too much.

Spiced nuts with brown sugar bacon

A long time ago in our big dirty house in Milwaukee I cooked up a batch of bacon in brown sugar with pecans. It was really good and completely addictive. It also made the house smell like burned, sugary pork product for about a week. This last week I saw a recipe in the New York Times for roasted nuts topped with sugared bacon--it kind of reminded me of the pig candy episode from many years earlier so I decided to make something like it for Melanie's holiday potluck party last night. It turns out that there is a way to make sugared bacon in your oven without making your house smell porky. Who knew?

I got a bag of cashews and a bag of almonds from the market, both were roasted, unsalted nuts. I think each bag probably had about 1 ½ cups of nuts in it. I added in the rest of a bag of pecans that I had to make about 3 ½ - 4 cups of nuts total. This is a successful mix--cashews, pecans and almonds--but you could do all cashews or something if you prefer. Separated the whites out from 2 eggs and beat them lightly in a big bowl (I saved the yolks to make zabaglione the next morning). Dumped all the nuts into the beaten egg whites and tossed until they were coated. Added 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt, 5 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1 teaspoon cayenne and 2 teaspoons garam masala. Stirred everything up really well so all the spices were evenly mixed throughout the nuts. Spread the spiced nuts out on a baking sheet and popped into the oven to roast at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Keep a really good eye on them--get in there with a spoon and move them around often. They will be soft while they are in the oven but will crisp up after you get them out of the heat. If you're vegetarian, you can skip this next part and you'll just have some delicious holiday spiced nuts to eat, but the bacon is what really elevates this, so here's what you do next: Take a package of bacon (usually 1 pound) and lay the strips flat on a sheet of parchment paper over a baking sheet. If you don't use parchment paper then you will have a bacony mess everywhere, so be sure to do that. Also be sure to use the kind of baking/cookie sheet that has a raised edge--I think they're properly called jelly roll pans--because then the bacon grease will be contained. Needless to say, the first time I made this years ago I did not use parchment paper nor a jelly roll pan...so the oven got all spattered and it's amazing we didn't have a grease fire or something. Also, that's clearly what accounted for the semi-permanent sugar/piggy smell in our house thereafter. Anyway. Lay out your bacon on your parchment papered jelly roll baking sheet and proceed to sprinkle brown sugar all over the slices, at least 1/2 cup of sugar. Rub it all over the bacon strips so both sides are covered then stick it in the oven with the nuts at 350 degrees. The bacon will also probably take about 20 - 25 minutes, again keep a good eye on it and turn the pan around if one side appears to be browning faster than the other. There is nothing sadder than burnt bacon, after all. Take it out when the bacon is golden and crispy looking. Take the strips of bacon off the parchment paper and let them cool on a wire rack--they'll become delightfully crispy. Now break (or cut) the strips of sugared bacon up into teensy pieces and toss them in a serving bowl together with your spiced, roasted nuts. Byron and I were eating these alongside our tumblers of bourbon and it is a seriously good cocktail snack--salty, sweet and spicy all at the same time.