a rainy day AND a sick day leaves only one option for lunch:

I feel like winter is slipping through my fingers all too fast, and I still have so many soups and oven-dependent recipes I wanted to be making. I keep defaulting to the tried and true, or to sandwiches (?? see below, it's a special kind of sandwich with Patak meat), and I've got to stop.

Though I don't feel like it, in the interests of hopefully, eventually blogging through Artisan Breads Everyday, I will post a picture and say a few words about the hoagie/cheesesteak roll recipe I tried with high expectations lat week. A couple of things went wrong on my end, namely running out of bread flour about halfway through the measuring, and making the mistake of using bleached rather than unbleached all-purpose flour in its place. So I'm not sure how much that had to do with it, but I wasn't a huge fan of the flavor of my custom (ahem) dough. I added the optional barley malt syrup since I keep it on hand for bagels anyway, but it still kind of fell flat. As usual, shaping is going to take some practice. Even so, they're decent rolls and I'd like to give them a try again with the right kind of flour. I'm not sure how much value this little review even has with that rather large variable being off...meh.

This is Patak's Black Forest ham, with plenty of spicy brown mustard and mayo and of course a pickle and cheddar cheese. I think I know why I fall back on sandwiches too much. 

Oh, and speaking of breads, a P.S. on the whole wheat ciabatta mentioned previously. It is too sweet for me. I understand you have to have a little sugar to offset the whole wheat flour's bitterness, but I will make a note to cut it by half next time. Otherwise, it's a nice bread. It looks pretty. But I will still always prefer the ever so unhealthy original white kind. I don't think it'll kill us to alternate between the two. 

back to the blog

It's been a while! Now that we're settled in and the holidays have passed (which always makes me feel a little relieved, as much as I anticipate and enjoy them), I'm cooking and baking regularly again. Hopefully this blog will be a little less neglected as well.

I have a batch of 50% whole wheat rustic bread "fermenting" in the fridge, so we'll see tomorrow how that turns out. I recall making it before maybe a year ago, and liking it quite a bit, but then I reverted back to my regular white ciabatta routine and forgot about it.

Today I made cream of leek and potato soup for lunch, halving the original recipe and planning on having it for three lunches, but it turned out being more like two "main" servings. Oh well. It is so easy and fast and absolutely scrumptious.

Cream of leek and potato soup
Serves 2
Adapted from Julia Child
2 medium leeks, white and light green parts thoroughly rinsed and roughly chopped (To get the sand out, you need to halve the leeks lengthwise almost to the root, leaving it intact, and fan them out to expose all the layers under running water.)
1 large russet or baking potato, peeled and roughly chopped
3 cups water
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 c. half-and-half
fresh ground black pepper

Bring the leeks, potatoes, water, and salt to a boil in a medium pot. Simmer, partially covered, 20-30 minutes or until vegetables are tender (depends how large you cut them). Puree, either with an immersion blender if you don't mind little chunks here and there or in a blender for perfect smoothness. Stir in the half-and-half and heat through for a couple minutes if necessary. Grind in pepper to taste and serve.

Spicy sweet potato coconut soup

Last winter I was flipping through Parade for the only reason I ever flip through Parade: the inspiring celebrity interviews. Not. I look through it in case of coupons (once I got one for a free McDonald's coffee drink that wasn't half bad) and throw it out, disdainfully passing over any other content---especially the awful recipes "developed" by the latest celebrity with a cookbook. Not even celebrity chefs, just celebrities who used their image to "write" useless cookbooks that might make them some much-needed extra cash... Anyway, once last year there was a column with recipes from Bobby Flay, who is legit enough for me, and since this soup was based on my favorite fall vegetable, I made it. I recall my husband enthusiastically approving it, while I was more mild in my praise, only noting beside the recipe that it "had potential." So last week I found myself with sweet potatoes and cool-ish weather, and thought I'd try and develop that potential.

Probably the biggest mistake I made the first time around was substituting light coconut milk. This time I thought I'd just try adding less full-fat coconut milk, which I could always increase if needed, and I found that 2/3 the original amount did the trick.

Spicy Sweet Potato-Coconut Soup
Yield: about 6 first-course servings
adapted from Bobby Flay

2 1/2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, divided
1 small onion, diced small
1 (2") piece fresh ginger, grated
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium canned chicken broth
1/2 c. water
1 to 1 1/2 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large dice, plus 1/2 of a small sweet potato, peeled and diced small, divided
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp. finely chopped cilantro
1 c. coconut milk (do not substitute light; Chaokoh and Thai Kitchen are my favorite brands)
1 Tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp. butter

1. Heat 1 1/2 Tbsp. of the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute the onion and ginger paste until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the 1/4 tsp. pepper flakes and cook just til fragrant, then stir in stock and water. Bring to a boil, then add the diced sweet potatoes. Simmer until potatoes are soft, about 20-30 mins depending on how large you cut them. (I hate cutting sweet potatoes so my cubes tend to be big and take at least 25 mins.)

2. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 Tbsp. of oil with the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Saute the 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes til fragrant, then add the small diced sweet potato. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally until softened, about 15 minutes. Uncover and increase heat to medium-high. Stirring often, brown potatoes on all sides, about 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, season with salt and pepper, and stir in the cilantro.

3. After letting the hot potato/stock mixture cool for 5 minutes, transfer to a blender in batches and puree. Return to the empty saucepan and add the coconut milk, honey, and cinnamon; simmer on low til slightly thickened and warmed through. Season to taste, adding more pepper flakes or salt if needed. Serve with the diced potato relish.

come quickly, September...

Well, it looks like I've managed to survive (most of) another Southern summer without melting and/or complaining incessantly. I think I was better than ever about resisting the urge to use the oven, dishwasher, and any other heat sources in the kitchen as freely as I do when temperatures are more moderate. That and a list of summer meal ideas (which I didn't actually consult much; merely making it was some sort of psychological boost) helped a lot. But having had a taste of cool mornings lately, I am more restless than ever to start using my oven for middle-of-the-day baking projects and slow-cooked meats; I have always intensely looked forward to fall for many reasons, and as I cook more the anticipation grows each year. Spring and summer certainly have their culinary delights, but for me, primarily a baker, the prospect of cooler weather leading up to the best of all holidays (Thanksgiving, closely followed of course by Christmas) is more tantalizing than anything.

I started making a top ten list in my head of the dishes I will be making as soon as it cools down. They are:

1. Pork vindaloo (from Best International Recipe; review here). My Indian repertoire currently consists of this stew and a delicious recipe for coconut milk-braised green beans, so I can't speak to authenticity or anything, but just as a stew it is fantastic.

2. Spiced carrot soup (adapted from Cafe Bouloud, as printed in CI's Restaurant Favorites at Home). I've rarely made a soup with such complex flavors--the finish with fresh carrot juice is brilliant--and the smell of the carrots braising in coconut milk and curry powder is out of this world. The original recipe calls for shrimp, and it does work well, but I often just make it plain and serve with a hearty, interesting salad and bread.

3. Spanish-style pork loin with sherry-raisin vinaigrette. This was a seriously good pork roast and I wrote about it here.

4. Chicken in a pot (much more elegantly known by its French name, poulet en cocotte). I tried this once last year out of BIR, and it was quite good, though it took much longer to finish than indicated and that always gets me flustered. It was still, as promised, a very low-fuss way of evenly cooking a whole chicken while keeping it moist, and it tasted very French and refined. And wintry.

5. Any big old cheesy pasta casserole that takes two hours to bake--any at all. Pastitsio in particular. (Another nice thing about cooler weather is that my motivation to exercise is ten times what it is in the summer, which is good because pastitsio will make even me feel compelled to schedule an extra few minutes into my next workout. And I am not a calorie-counter.)

6. Thai chicken soup (tom kha gai), also from BIR. The lemongrass, the coconut milk, the sweat-inducing spice from the chiles and curry paste...I could eat this stuff every day.

7. Sweet potatoes: baked, in soups, in pies, anything. There's a mashed sweet potatoes with vanilla recipe in Restaurant Favorites that I also need to try. Cream, vanilla, butter, and the best vegetable ever. How could that go wrong?

8. Chowder. Specifically corn (with generous amounts of bacon) and clam. I was fairly addicted to this clam chowder last year.

9. Simple, one-dish meat and potato meals you stick in the oven and forget about, like this one. That was a good recipe. Also, braised beef with polenta and crusty bread. Lucky you, the beef recipe is on Google Books here.

10. A hundred variations on grilled cheese and only one (the best) cream of tomato soup. CI's 30-minute tomato soup, to be exact. I've tried their standard (more time-consuming) soup, too, and I think it has nothing on the quick one. I must have made this soup 100 times last year and never got the slightest bit sick of it. Below is my adaptation of the recipe.


Cream of Tomato Soup
adapted from Cook's Illustrated, Best 30-Minute Recipe
3 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
3 c. Swanson low-sodium or homemade chicken broth, plus maybe a little more
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp. butter
1 onion, minced
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 Tbsp. flour
1/3 c. heavy cream
2 tsp. dry sherry

1. Put the tomatoes one can at a time into a strainer set over a large bowl. Squeeze out as much juice as you can: ideally you'll get 2 cups after all the cans are strained. Add broth to equal 5 cups of liquid. Bring the broth /juice mixture with the bay leaves to a boil in a medium saucepan, then cover and keep warm.
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven over high heat. Add the drained tomatoes, onion, brown sugar, tomato paste, and 1/2 tsp. salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes look dry and are beginning to brown, 10-12 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
3. Slowly whisk or stir in the hot broth mixture. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes to blend flavors.
4. Remove the bay leaves, then puree the soup in batches in a blender. (With hot liquids it's best to remove the little plastic cap inside the lid, and cover the hole with a thickly folded dish towel under your hand.) Return pureed soup to the pot and stir in the cream and sherry. Bring it just to a simmer, then remove from heat, season with salt and cayenne pepper to taste, and serve. (Yield: 6 servings. If you want to make this a day or two ahead, don't add the cream and sherry until you reheat it before serving.)

Chicken stock: or, how to fool yourself into thinking summer is over

On this horrifically hot and humid day I am inside enjoying the evocative, cool-weather smell of chicken stock. I finally gathered enough chicken bones in the freezer to make some, and just in time. I really hate buying those little boxes of broth (except during holiday sales when I have coupons), knowing that it costs pennies and part of an afternoon to make a few perfectly serviceable quarts to keep in the freezer. Here is my usual recipe, adapted from Gourmet.

NOTES: I hardly ever have celery or thyme on hand, so take it from me that this stock is still very good without those things. I mostly gather the bones and rib sections from bone-in split chicken breasts, which are so cheap and easy to carve, and keep them in a bag in the freezer til I have enough. The biggest rookie mistake with stock, I think, is one I actually committed today (while I was drafting this post and doing laundry and making sherbert, which see below): letting it simmer too quickly, or worse, boil. You don't have to be super attentive with stock, but you do want to check now and then, especially at the beginning (when you have to be around to skim the foam anyway), that the liquid is just barely at a simmer (180 degrees is ideal). Otherwise, it will boil down too quickly, becoming concentrated and not yielding the amount you were trying to get. Probably it affects the flavor is some way too, but I don't know, I'm no connoisseur. Obviously. Due to this mistake it looks like I only got about two quarts today, quite a bit less than usual. Oh well.

Rich Chicken Stock
adapted from Gourmet magazine

3-3 1/2 lbs. raw chicken bones and/or wings
2 celery ribs, halved
2 carrots, halved
2 onions, unpeeled and halved
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
6 parsley sprigs
2 thyme sprigs
12 black peppercorns
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
3-3 1/2 quarts (12-14 cups) water
1 tsp. salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a large (at least 8 quart) stockpot and bring to a simmer. Skim foam off the top as it rises, then let cook for 3 hours, maintaining a very gentle simmer and skimming occasionally.
2. Remove large solids with a spider or slotted spoon, then pour stock through a fine-mesh strainer into a large bowl or pot. Cool in an ice bath, then move to refrigerator.
3. If using immediately, skim off fat from surface first. After chilling for several hours, the fat will be much easier to remove off the surface of the broth; do this before returning to the fridge for up to 5 days or storing in the freezer for months. (I like making a couple ice cube trays full of broth for pan sauces and other small-amount uses: once frozen I dump the cubes into a bag, and then I can readily see how many tablespoons I have. The rest goes into various 1, 2, and 3-cup portioned bags.)

-------------

Alas, I still know it's summer because while the stock was simmering I mixed up David Lebovitz's chocolate-coconut sherbert, reputed to taste like a Mounds bar. Last time I jumped on an endorsement like that it didn't quite live up, but any combination of chocolate and coconut (and rum) is a hard thing to regret no matter how it turns out. The perpetual appropriateness of ice cream is definitely one of the few advantages to summer.

Oh, and speaking of DL, his ice cream sandwiches---let's say they are recommended with reservations. My first complaint is, who in their right mind in 2011 is going to eat two 3" cookies with ice cream sandwiched in between? I mean how do you justify that, even if you are physiologically able to eat it all in one sitting? And my second complaint is not really DL's fault, but as with all dark colored cookies (I've had this problem making "Oreos" before), it's very difficult to tell when they're done to the degree you want: here I wanted something fudgy and chewy, but they came out quite crisp. Easy solution: I will shorten the baking time when I next make these. Complicating that is my plan to seriously downsize the cookies as well. So we'll see. I have to say the flavor is absolutely spot-on, and I wouldn't change anything about the recipe formula itself.

Traditional Andalusian gazpacho

I made the trek this morning to the awe-inspiring Dunwoody Farmers' Market, where I got some lovely, sweet cucumbers and a couple kinds of tomatoes from two different vendors. The tiny multi-colored heirlooms will go into pasta caprese later in the week, and the "regular" (I guess plum?) ones, which were very ripe, made me switch my meal plan around so that I could make gazpacho today.

Contrary to appearances, I don't actually love Spanish food; for one thing, I haven't cooked or eaten enough of it to judge, and for another, olives are one of the few foods I simply cannot eat in any form (except the oil), and they seem to show up in a lot of Spanish dishes. A couple summers ago, I tried making gazpacho, a Cook's Illustrated recipe (as with many popular dishes they have several versions, and I can't recall which I tried), and it was disappointing. I just didn't like the flavor or texture. I wanted to try again, knowing that there can be a wide range of gazpacho styles, so this time I turned to the Andalusian recipe in the first chapter of CI's Restaurant Favorites (it is adapted from Jaleo in D.C., where the famous José Andrés is chef).

The soup is nothing more than a slice of bread for thickener, garlic (which I just realized I forgot!), tomatoes, bell peppers (it called for green, I used yellow), cucumbers, sherry vinegar, and olive oil, pureed with enough water to make it the right consistency, then strained. I do not have a medium-mesh strainer as called for, so I tried to approximate what that would produce by using my fine-mesh strainer and adding back into the soup about half of the solids. The "garnish," which is much more substantial than I am accustomed to associating with the term, simply reprised the vegetables in small dice along with fresh garlic croutons. It was a great soup, and I'd make it again exactly as I did tonight, but I'm glad I cut back the yield to 2 servings so there were no leftovers. It's the sort of thing we wouldn't really crave, but once it's on the table, it seems right and tastes delicious. I served it with our old friend the "Spanish" tortilla, fully Americanized with Frank's sauce because I didn't feel like making Romesco, and ciabatta toasts with Manchego cheese. Which is one Spanish food I really am starting to like.

Weekend

Not much happening on the kitchen front that I've felt like reporting. I've been in a pretty big meal-planning rut. Let's see... I made a spinach-onion quiche that was pretty good. Yawn. Quiche is a big "I'm in a rut" food for me. I'm getting tired of it even as such.

On Friday I made a nice minestrone, perfect for the reasonably cool days we'd been having, and perhaps the real last hurrah for soup until December. :( This is a Cook's Illustrated recipe from their Soups & Stews book which I recently borrowed from a friend. It has no fewer than eight vegetables in it, so I heard no complaints from M with regard to our adherence to the food pyramid as we nibbled on this soup all weekend. (He's not nearly as neurotic about our diet as I make him sound; I just have a more laissez-faire approach to eating vegetables, like when I feel like it and/or it is convenient for me.) I made the variation that uses pancetta and am glad I did, since this soup derives its flavor entirely from the vegetables, with no chicken/beef broth (a real shocker for a CI recipe; they do love their chicken broth). I omitted the can of beans suggested because we don't much like them. Even so this was a very full pot of soup. It tasted healthy in a good way.

(And just because I have it, another picture of the same soup:)

On Saturday I made a Cook's Illustrated recipe for herbed pork loin that looked fantastic but was somewhat of a disappointment. Even just cooked to the right temperature and duly brined, it came out a bit dry; and though the herb flavor was great, much of the paste was slathered on top of the roast, along the pork's generous fat cap, which no one wants to eat. You also make a pocket down the length of the roast into which you slather some more of the herb paste, but that ends up being a tiny sliver in each piece of pork. Our general feeling: meh. It sure looked pretty, though (except maybe for the burned shallots in the topping).

Week in review

After Monday, I had a pretty easy week ahead cooking-wise. Tuesday I tried out caldo verde, a Portuguese soup from the America's Test Kitchen Best of 2009 cookbook. M wasn't a big fan of either kale or the sausage---which was not my preferred brand of chorizo---but liked the flavorful broth. It was simple and easy and I was glad to have the leftovers for lunch.

Wednesday was another new recipe, beef teriyaki, from CI's Best International Recipe. I thought this went okay, but I was distracted with my quickly cooking green beans and the unevenly cooking steak and the rice that kept spilling over and the massive amount of dishes/utensils spread all over my counters....and I tend to be prejudiced against dishes that have me flustered and dreading the clean-up when I sit down to eat. I'd be willing to try it again, though, and M liked the flavor a lot.

Thursday I made a mediocre pasta sauce, because I keep forgetting that there is basically nothing M likes with ground beef except burgers, and this is the only other way I can think to use it when I buy it. But I can never get this sauce to taste very interesting. I've come to prefer the extremely simple tomato-butter-onion sauce from Marcella Hazan, or sauces like it.

Yesterday we went to M's boss's house for a crawfish boil, which was fun, though I opted out of the crawfish---too much work and too little reward. I brought Dorie Greenspan's blondies, which were probably almost on the "too sweet" end of the sugar spectrum, but very good in small amounts. I might reduce the sugar next time. The mixture of chocolate, butterscotch, and coconut was a winner.

Today I've been in the kitchen a lot since the time we woke up. I made M's favorite blueberry muffins (an ATK recipe) for breakfast, then a chocolate chip banana bread for church tomorrow. For lunch, perhaps for the last time until fall, I made my favorite soup in the whole world, a cream of tomato soup (from CI of course) that takes about 30 minutes and tastes like perfection. I heated up some focaccia I made Thursday with that.

Again as sort of a last hurrah before the hot weather hits, tonight I made this one-dish roasted meal with great results (the chicken skin was to die for), plus a warm green bean salad and the most decadent biscuits I have ever made. I think I've said that before, but this time I really mean it. They're made with buttermilk and a blend of all-purpose and cake flours. They're a hybrid between regular rolled-out biscuits (which I hate) and drop biscuits.

And in stark contrast to that wintry meal, we have Philly-style vanilla ice cream for dessert after I freeze it later. Yum.

West African Sweet Potato Peanut Soup

Another winner from CI's Best International Recipe, I first made this soup in November---memorably, because that was the day our sink disposal clogged horribly as I was washing the many sweet potato peelings down it---without feeling much affection towards it. It was okay but had a taste in the background that I wasn't a huge fan of. I thought I'd try it again this weekend for lunch, and was pleasantly surprised at how much better it turned out with just a couple of changes.

All I had in my "allium basket" (where I keep onions, shallots, and garlic) today were shallots, so I had to sub two medium in place of half an onion. (I was halving the recipe. As an aside, I have gotten so much better at doing this: if the consequences of messing up would be enormous and/or I'm feeling like it's a blonde day, I'll write out the new proportions in pencil or on a separate sheet of paper before I start cooking, but usually I do it in my head and have no problem remembering that I am changing the amounts. That used to be SO not the case.) I sauteed the shallots with a little salt and brown sugar just til soft, then added a large minced clove of garlic with coriander and and a pinch cayenne (not even enough that I could taste it). Once that's fragrant, you add 1 3/4 cups chicken broth and 1 cup water, plus a mere 1 1/2 Tbsp. of peanut butter (the flavor comes through nevertheless) and a 1-lb. sweet potato, quartered and sliced thin. This is supposed to simmer on low, partially covered, for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are tender, but I apparently sliced them thinner than CI did---with a rare lack of precision, they didn't specify slice width down to 1/8 of an inch, so I was guessing what they meant by "thin"---so this soup was almost a 30-minute ordeal all told. I pureed it in two batches and added a little fresh ground pepper and cinnamon, which I find irresistible in all things sweet potato, and much more agreeble than the suggested cilantro. This was a tasty, and quite filling, sweet potato soup.

week(s) in review

Beef stroganoff

Saturday I made sort of a Russian-French fusion dinner that came out very well. The stroganoff, which I mixed two CI recipes to get, did not look great color-wise but tasted just fine with the egg noodles (and, by the way, now I realize there is a huge difference between real egg noodles and the No Yolks brand...). Probably the star of that meal was the braised leeks, recipe in my ATK 2009 cookbook: I had no idea what to expect besides a vaguely onion-ish flavor, but it was so much more. And so very easy and quick. We loved them. The cheese blintzes for dessert (CI Best International Recipe) were nice, even if I decided after a few bites that I just cannot do sweet cheese made with farmer's cheese (and I'm definitely glad I didn't substitute ricotta as the recipe suggested—it's like the texture of farmer's cheese times 10). The cherry sauce worked pretty well, and I'm just glad I have a good crepe recipe I can fit to any occasion or filling. Also make-ahead by definition.

Leeks to be braised---didn't get a during or after photo because they were so quick, and covered half the time.

 Sweet cheese blinchiki with cherry sauce

One night I pulled some split chicken breasts out of the freezer and pan-roasted them with a sauce. I love the concept of roasting a small amount of chicken and then making a pan sauce while it rests, even if my chicken seems always to take much longer than the original recipe indicated. I made a white wine and parsley sauce that night, then served with arugula salad and mashed potatoes. And bread. I do believe I am close to perfecting my ciabatta. Except for like every sixth time when the dough does that weird seize-up and becomes more like bagel dough, which it did this last batch. I just can't figure it out. I weigh both flour and water now (and realized that both my main liquid measuring cups are off by like an ounce or two if you go by the volume measurement!). But at least I don't do anything so stupid as throw the dough out in frustration...now I know that it still makes beyond decent bread, just not that light and airy delight that comes out when the dough is properly wet.

I made a lemon chess pie complete with a rolled out crust using 3 Tbsp shortening and 4 Tbsp butter, from an ATK cookbook I had out from the library. The filling was pretty good, if guilt-inducing even for me with another full stick of butter, tons of sugar and 5 eggs and blah blah blah. But the crust was not even remotely worth the calories. Don't know what the deal was there. Rachel gave me some lard that I will have to try in lieu of shortening the next time I'm up for pie...which may not be far off.

I made some delectable butter with the expensive but totally-worth-it pasteurized cream from Dekalb Farmers Market last week; put about 2/3 of it in the freezer as salted parsley butter for dishes, and we're about to finish the little roll I salted and put in the fridge for bread. Delicious.

One one class night, I made fried eggs and put them on toasted and buttered English muffins, serving with the warm spinach salad with bacon I've made so many times. It was good, though M does insist on having his yolks runny, which is not the safest...tsk tsk.

Last weekend I made Latin chicken and rice with roasted red peppers. It was okay. The rice was a tad crunchy, as it usually is with that dish when I make it—you'd think I could figure out how to fix that already! Probably should add a little more water and remove the chicken and let the rice cook longer. Duh. I also don't like using dark meat per the recipe because then you have to remove it from the bone, and with the dark red sauce you can't see exactly what you're doing, so inevitably some bits of nasty fat or bone get in and you have to spit them out and ahh, gross. But I used my birthday gift of piment d'espelette instead of paprika and it tasted pretty good in there. I sound like such an unrefined hick, yep. Avocados as garnish were indispensable; probably saved the dish, really.

I had to reheat the leftovers Sunday night but with them made a terrific corn chipotle soup, the only downside of which was having to throw out all the solids after I pureed it with my immersion blender, which maybe didn't get it finely pureed enough? I'll try the regular blender next time. But the strained liquid (i.e. the soup, hah) was extremely good, and went well with the chicken and rice. Recipe here.

Friday afternoon I cooked up beef shepherd's pie from CI's Best Make-Ahead Recipe for a family with a new baby. I thought it came out pretty well. I omitted the small amount of red wine that went in with the broth, because I wasn't sure about the rules on alcohol while nursing. I also used mostly Pacific beef broth, which I had just opened a couple days earlier, rather than chicken broth, since how could beef broth not work with a beef stew sort of dish? While making this I finally learned my lesson about making great mashed potatoes, and it goes like this: 1. Add cream. I never really knew what I was doing when I made mashed potatoes, messing around with sour cream which seeems to make them dry-ish, or adding sissy amounts of milk or maybe half-and-half. Forget it, you only live once. I'm making mine like this from now on. Also they had me mash them over low heat in the saucepan in which I had boiled them (3/4” slices of russets)---maybe that helped the texture be much smoother than mine normally are?  The best part was that I had a little bit leftover of everything the next day so I made it again for us for lunch. M was impressed, said it wasn't what he remembered shepherd's pie to be growing up, however he had it then. I'll definitely try it again following the recipe exactly with wine and chicken broth, though.

Monday after lunch at Emily's I went to the legendary Patak. It was pretty cool. We already polished off the smoked turkey breast for sandwiches, which I think was laced with some sort of green herb and just meltingly tender and tasty. We had half the smoked salmon tonight, which sadly has gone up in price to $10 from $4/lb (which was what their website says), but it was so delicious. With that I made creamed spinach, and it was fine though the last couple times I've made it the sauce has seized up on me before I add the spinach, so it never really blends right...I don't know what that's about.

week in review

Monday I made spiced carrot soup with shrimp from CI's Restaurant Favorites, a first course I typically make into a main with a salad and bread; some of the shrimp I cleaned were mushy and kind of ruined the meal for me, because I was worried about their overall freshness (they were from Publix, which at least hasn't utterly scared me off from the seafood dept like Kroger has). Tuesday I made a rather nice salad, the highlight of which was a roasted garlic dressing that I wasn't anticipating would be so good. It's from CI's Best Slow & Easy cookbook, I think, and I had saved it on my computer back when I had it checked out from the library. So I poached some chicken for that and threw in carrots, pepitas, diced (roughly) hard-boiled egg, and bacon, the great salad enhancer. It was good and M approved it even as a main. For Wednesday I fell back on breakfast, as it was M's first day of evening classes: waffles, sausage and eggs. Not the healthiest but we don't eat like that extremely often. A guy who writes at Front Porch Republic has argued against breakfast because sleeping should not count as fasting. :D I agree, it's rather stupid that our bodies demand food as soon as we rouse ourselves from doing absolutely nothing. But makinig up for skipping breakfast by having it for dinner---I'm on board with that.

snowed in

M has been home all day all week because of the freak snowstorm, so I've been doing lots of cooking for us. It's been fun. Tuesday for lunch I made New England clam chowder, with some necessary modifications (didn't think to buy celery before the storm hit) and the last of the delicious frozen CI Anytime Dinner Rolls with a side salad (my boring old standby: red leaf lettuce, baby carrots, and sunflower seeds in a slightly variable vinaigrette). For dinner I made the Szechuan pork, red pepper, and scallion stir fry that I first tried in November and loved. This time it was markedly bland; not sure what happened. My garlic wasn't fresh so I didn't put quite as much in as called for, since peeling and getting the green sprouts out of the middle before pressing is not what I call fun. M still said he'd eat it again, even like that. It was healthy and something different at least.

Wednesday for lunch I baked a cheesy chicken bundle from the freezer (something we made at Emily's in November) and with it we had leftover tomato soup. I was busy making more pumpkin muffins and a light chocolate Bundt cake from CI's Best Light Recipe, which was featured in one of the ATK weekly newsletter things. It did not disappoint. Better chocolate flavor than many cakes I've made, and though it seemed a tad dry today, with whipped cream and cherries it's still great. I'll probably freeze half before it dries out too much. It's nice for once being able to leave a cake out at room temperature. And given that it is relatively light, and has no icing, it makes a very nice everyday chocolate cake indeed.

Today I served up the last of the clam chowder for lunch. For dinner it will also be leftovers, from last night's mediocre pasta meal. Mostly so because I used the Garden Delight pasta which needs a very strong and/or rich sauce to cover up the (obviously) vegetal flavor. However, since it is healthy M doesn't mind it too much, and said the same thing last night as he did about the stir fry—not going to win any awards, but perfectly fine as a home cooked dinner. The sauce was the simple meat sauce from CI, which I made exactly per instructions (and which I know I've made before), and I think it usually gets better with age. It's not bad at all as an all-purpose sauce; I'm just spoiled by the tomato cream sauce I've made from them, as well as (especially) the slow-cooked pork sauce with wine, which I need to make the next time pork ribs are even marginally on sale (not altogether rational, I know, but I have to feel like I'm being frugal most of the time...).