What to do with all this food?

The Location: Cambridge, MA
The Books: Heirloom Beans from Rancho Gordo by Steve Sando and Vanessa Barrington 
and Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito
The Recipes: Cannellini Bean Confetti Spread (Heirloom...),  Cowboy Cookies (Baked), and Mushroom Strudel (from epicurious.com)
The Soundtrack: Charlotte Gainsbourg. IRM


My feelings are a little hurt. I was supposed to host book club tonight, but it got cancelled.  I mentioned to Mr. D that I don't understand why I am so upset and he pointed out that it was the first largish gathering that I was going to host in our new apartment.  Maybe I wouldn't be so upset if the cancellation text hadn't come in the middle of a battle I was having with phyllo dough (blast you temperamental pastry that I have not mastered!) an hour and a half before I was expecting guests to arrive.


Since the book club was on a Thursday I did a lot of prep work yesterday and even though I was only planning on making three things (everyone brings a snack to contribute), I might have been a little overly ambitious. Who decides to make a bean spread from dried beans, cookies where the dough has to rest for at least four hours, and a mushroom strudel from scratch for a Thursday night gathering? Well Drunk Cook #2, you know that I would! (And did!) 


Let's talk about the strudel first. Technically I know it doesn't belong on this blog because it didn't come from one of my cookbooks.

 However I am including it because it lets me talk about goose fat. You see this recipe calls for rendered goose or duck fat between the sheets of phyllo dough. Guess who's colleague brought her in a jar of goose fat on Monday? A friend of mine asked how it came up in conversation that I would want goose fat. It was pretty simple, my colleague mentioned he was making a goose and I asked him if he would be using all of the fat. I can't even explain how good this strudel was - the mushroom filling was so rich due to the inclusion of dried porcinis and then the fat was from a goose. Talk about richness. Then you add a flaky pastry? Hell to the Yea. It was worth revisiting my love/hate relationship with phyllo (please tell me if you have mastered this finicky product.)

                       

I had never heard of a cowboy cookie. Regarding the name, the cookbook states "It seems the name  is simply a sly reference to the rugged manliness implied by the cookie's bigness and embrace-it-all ingredients." Manliness implied by bigness? This intrigued me. I think that statement might also make a few men upset... What intrigued me more was the inclusion of pretzels in the dough.  I had never heard of anything like that. They add such a nice crunchy salty element to the cookie that is completely unexpected. However, I think the thing that really took them over the top was the inclusion of expresso powder.

Now I am going to tell you something that might surprise you. I misread the recipe for the bean dip and added too much parmesan. And I didn't have garlic to roast. So I tweaked the recipe.  Instead of measuring the chives, I eye-balled it. I didn't measure the olive oil. I just grabbed a handful of olives. It was liberating. And the result was delicious! Creamy, tangy, briny, delicious! You need to get the heirloom book and start making rancho Gordo beans.

Now the only problem is what am I going to do with all this food?

Everyday Thomas Keller

Being single changes everything in your life.  Suddenly, you find yourself worrying about when the car is due for it's next maintenance check up; and, you research how to save money on the cable bill, which is nearly highway murder; you think about the best way to discreetly run wires from one room to another because you don't have enough power in the apartment for your technology needs; and, you find yourself eating like a single person - standing up, in your underwear, and with less grandeur and table setting as when I was married.

Without a clear understanding of my social status, I took on Thomas Keller's Short Rib's recipe from his Ad Hoc at Home book.   A beautiful book that was gifted to me by my good friend, Drunk Cook #1.

Now, I have made short ribs in my slow cooker in the past to some level of success.  Those short ribs were soaked in goodness and the meat was falling apart soft.  The fat in the meat melts from 4 + hours being slowly coaxed out of the meat fibers, and creates a delicious, velvety, unctuous sauce that is just as tasty alone as it is as the accompaniment to the meat. 

Nothing is as you would expect with Thomas Keller.   He went in the opposite direction. He requires a braise of 2 hours (at most) in a meat and wine reduction with plenty of precisely chopped and cleaned vegetables.  The short ribs, Plather Ranch Organic Beef (pictured above), are deboned, floured and seared in a separate pan to create a lovely crust on the meat.

While the food is simmering, the kitchen is warmed and takes on this lovely smell of cooking vegetables and I think about the book I had been reading by Margaret Atwood ( <3).  It's about an apocalypse and the last man standing.  In the warmth of my kitchen, I stand and I feel.  

The wafting smell of simmering food makes me feel at home, loved, and emotionally comforted.

The recipe is completed late in the evening.  The meat is unbelievably cooked!  It hasn't disintegrated into meat velvet.  The broth is plentiful and light, feathered with whisperers of leek and red wine.  Thomas instructs to cut the meat into perfect chunks and serve it over pollenta or pureed potatoes.

Instead, I make a quick braise of chickpeas and cabbage in the superb broth and place a few pieces of short ribs on top to make a pretty soup.  

This is Thomas Keller, every day, and re-imagined by a single woman.   I ate my short rib version standing... at my kitchen counter.  [not pictured]

Epic Bread FAIL!

I hate bread.  I love bread, but I hate bread.

A few weeks ago, I was in Barnes and Noble habitually nuzzling the Asian soup cookbooks when - suddenly and completely unexpectedly - i picked up and bought a new cookbook, Tartine Bread.  To be honest, the book had been staring at me from the corner of the shelf; peeping around a few @FoodNetwork star cookbooks, and jostling @MarthaStewart annuals for position.  It made frequent eye contact with me, and even subtly flashed the cover loaf at me, which prompted me to immediately drop the Asian book (sorry...) and slither over.

// next morning

I had taken the cookbook home.  Heavy sigh.... I had spent a long night closely studying it's pages.  A true work of art!!!  Pure Bread beauty...

This is how my relationship with Bread was to begin again... on a slip; a whim; what I thought would be a book on my one night stand.

//

And so, I began with the first recipe in the book.  The Starter.  A simple mixture of flour and water using my hands.  This transfers the bacteria from my hand to the flour/water mixture.  In most cases, giving someone a bacteria is not the goal, but with Bread it's a requirement!!

I set the mixture on the back counter and covered it with a paper towel.  And I waited.  I waited for 4 days.  The book had described that the starter will begin to bubble, but that it would not be ready for it's first feeding until after the 2nd or 3rd day.  Tell tale signs of a hungry starter are the bubbly, crusty surface that forms on the starter.  Other sure fire signs are noticeable by pulling the crust back on the starter and smelling it.  It should smell of a strong cheese and, if you dare, taste a bit acidic.

My starter?  She was beautiful.  Divine. Hungry and beautiful... and, so I fed her.

I tossed out 80% of the starter into my compost bin, which was promptly sent to the large garbage can in the back as to avoid further funk-ification of my kitchen.  I added back lukewarm water and more flour, which was mixed with my hands.  This feeding process is training the wild bacteria to be strong and to consume the flour nutrients in a timely manner.

The next morning, the Starter was looking healthy.  She smelled strong, which according to the cook book was how the bacteria are trained.  After feeding she should smell milky and mild.  Before feeding, she should smell strong and acidic.  Oh boy was she acidic the second day...

And, in my morning routine haste, I added water which was above the "lukewarm" requirement.  After I did it, I thought to myself "oh god, I may have just burned her."  Well, there was nothing I could do but hope that in the afternoon she would regain her footing and maintain growth.

I was fooling myself.  She was gone and I killed her.  The kitchen was awful, like a gruesome event had occurred, 10 hours later when I returned.  The emotion laid heavy on me.  I threw out the Starter and the dish, petri and all.

Cry, Forever.
Bread: 1; Supermophed: 0

Happy Valentine's Day, Bread Porno.

Sunday Side Makes a Great Lunch for the Week

The Location: Cambridge, MA
The Book: Heirloom Beans from Rancho Gordo by Steve Sando and Vanessa Barrington
The Recipe: Pasta Fazool
The Soundtrack: The Decemberists, The King is Dead

I just bought another cookbook. That brings this week's tally to six. SIX!!! Granted three of them I have wanted for some time (all canning books), one was an impulse to go with my new Japanese pickle maker (yes!), one is the Sriracha cookbook (really when I told you about it, did you think I could resist?), and one I bought today, Avec Eric. I had to have it you see because I am going to see him speak in March. Did I tell you this? Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain are speaking at Symphony Hall  in Boston and I am going! I am so excited. Too bad no one is excited to go with me. Oh well.

I actually mentioned this recipe in my last post, but it's so good I made it again. Well, it being so good is only part of the reason I made it again. You see, I kind of went on a bean buying spree. I wasn't sure I could get Rancho Gordo beans in Boston so I stocked up a few months ago in an online order. The good news is I found a place to buy them just down the street from my house. The bad news is that in my panic about not having access I over bought.

There seems to be a trend of over buying in my posts. Over buying and bacon. Yup, this recipe has bacon. A measly four slices, but still that wonderful crispy pork goodness. (As an aside someone told me today that they made chocolate covered bacon. Can you imagine? It's like the Vosges bar on crack.)

I started soaking the beans on Saturday morning. I had intended to drain them that night and use them the next morning, but I got drunk Saturday. So instead of draining them I added more water at 2 AM. When I crawled into the kitchen Sunday morning and realized what I had done I drained the beans. I was worried, but maybe you can't over soak beans?

So I diced up the bacon and started to saute it. Then I started dicing the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. It's a pretty simple recipe, except it calls for fresh oregano. Even if you grow fresh herbs, who grows oregano? Luckily since I made this a few weeks ago I still had some left over that wasn't completely spoiled. I pulled the bacon out of the pan and got ready to dump everything else in. That's how easy this recipe is. Saute the bacon, remove it from the pan, add some olive oil, then add the vegetables, oregano, beans, and some chicken stock. Then bring it to a boil and simmer for an hour and a half until the beans are tender. Sweet!

So what did I do while it was simmering for an hour and a half? I made preserved lemons!

After an hour and a half I added a can of tomatoes, salt, and a cup of pasta. Once the pasta was cooked, it's done. And it is so tasty.

I served it with asparagus that I broiled with olive and salt then served with lemon zest. And a steak. 

Now I have to scour the cookbooks for a recipe that has preserved lemons. At least I have delicious pasta fazool for lunch all week.

Pasta on a Wednesday Night

The Location: Cambridge, MA
The Book: Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver
The Recipe: Mini Shell Pasta with a Creamy Smoked Bacon and Pea Sauce
The Soundtrack: David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust

I had some pancetta that I needed to use. So I perused the cookbookshelf (now it actually fits in my kitchen!) two weeks ago when I knew we were going to have a car to go grocery shopping, and came across this recipe. I have made it before, but it's been quite sometime. And the inclusion of mint intrigued me - the thought of having fresh mint (regardless of how extremely expensive it is) in the dead of winter made me happy. So two weeks ago I bought the supplies to make this recipe. Then I made this awesome pasta a fazool from the Rancho Gordo cookbook. Then I made Caribbean Pork stew with plantains from another cookbook. Then it was the Super Bowl and I made so much football food that my head was spinning. Sometimes I forget that there are only two of us.

I still needed to use the pancetta.

So after a few days of eating left over wings, and some more of that Caribbean Pork stew I realized I really needed to use the pancetta. I had a big hunk of it because a while ago (I didn't realize exactly how long) I needed pancetta for another recipe and the store didn't have any options for slices, just a giant hunk. I pulled the pancetta out of the crisper and unwrapped it. It passed the sniff test, I noticed a spot on the side of the hunk, but I decided that it was pepper. Then I saw the fuzzy greenish blue tint on the top. When I told Mr. D that the pancetta was moldy, he said "It's been in there for like four months." To which I responded "Yeah, that's why I wanted to use it." Four months? Dang.

Luckily that same day two weeks ago that I bought all the other ingredients I doubled up on my bacon purchase. The recipe called for ten slices of pancetta or bacon. Woot!

The bacon I had was thick sliced. I seriously considered not using ten slices because the recipe just called for bacon. Considered.

Can I just note for a second that I think it's hysterical that this recipe calls for ten slices of bacon? Jamie Oliver is doing this whole food revolution, which I think is amazing, focusing on healthy eating and cooking. TEN. Slices. of. BACON. Sauteed in olive oil AND butter.

I got a little distracted while I was cooking the bacon because I was reading the e-mail about starting this food blog. So I had to play catchup. I threw the peas in with the bacon and turned the heat off while I chopped the mint. OH! The smell of fresh mint was like heaven. It made me forget my fears of the roof caving in under the weight of the snow for just a minute. Luckily I had put the pasta on the stove.

Once the mint was chopped and I added it to the peas and bacon, along with the cream. The sauce looked a little weird - a little separated. But I was mixing cream with the drippings from ten slices of bacon. I shrugged it off.

Then I realized that I hadn't grated the parmesan cheese. I started to grate using my box grater, but my hands cramped. So I pulled out the mini-prep. I've never used it to grate cheese, but the combination chop/grind functions worked rather well. And saved my hands.

So I added the pasta to the bacon, peas, mint, and cream. And stirred it. Then I added the parmesan cheese and stirred some more.

Now I am a firm believer that one cannot have pasta without bread. So I sliced some bread and served it up. The verdict from Mr. D? "Delicious dinner, thank you."

I asked Mr. D to proof this before I posted it and he asked why I made such unhealthy food. TEN slices of BACON. God I love bacon.