Smoke, Thanksgiving, and Broccoli

Dear World,

It is almost Thanksgiving. My siblings are all in Michigan, every last one of them....except me. I am there in the my soul: staying up too late with my sisters talking, cooking with mama, playing guitar with my brother, snuggling kittens and eating wild apples out of hand. I love them all and I am so glad that they are getting together and though I can't be there in person every time, I am so glad to know that we all have each other, despite our differences and busy lives. Familial connection is an elastic wonder.

We will be here for the holiday, pet-sitting for our home-going friends who all headed off in their cars to see grandparents. We are here with borrowed parakeets and guinea pigs, making pies from scratch together and test running board games for the big day. A's kind aunt and uncle who have been like bonus grandparents have invited us to come celebrate with them and so we will pack up our noisy van full of hooligans and drive the 30 minutes to their stately, elegant home on Thursday. It feels strange to say that I will be making broccoli for Thanksgiving. I said I would cook whatever would be useful and a green vegetable was the open slot. No extensive brining or searching for fancy recipes or agonizing over the decoration of pastry but also, no stress about the pie cooling properly or the meat being done all the way or the timing of the swapping of various items in the oven. It's kind of lovely to think about a day of gratitude in which I can just cook some broccoli and then read story books, dig out A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and press fallen leaves. It sounds good. Also, truth....I bought the ingredients for a small brie-en-croute and stuffed figs and I was thinking to make a little bit of my family's traditional wild rice dish. Not that I will take all those things over to dinner....but it wouldn't exactly be the holiday without them.

I am trying to come up with a classic to read next. I want something I have never read before that isn't too drippy and romantic but does feel uplifting. I can't do Austen right now, too much romantic fuffle. I can't handle Ethan Frome....too hard. I need something in between. In the meantime, I am working my way through My First Summer In The Sierras by John Muir. I am pleased and gratified by his botanical and scientific warmth in describing the world of the mountains, no one can do it better, but I am astonished at his own lack of facility and capability outdoors. He feels a little weaker than I ever expected. He's rather dependent on stuff: food, equipment, proper clothing, warm fires, etc. I think  I might be tougher than he is! Not sure how I feel about that. This is John Muir that we are talking about.

Speaking of fires, the air was clearing just a little today. I love the fact that stepping outdoors didn't mean itchy eyes and instant cough. The smoggulous smoke (as Suess would say) was so terrible earlier this week that we truly didn't leave the house for many days, not even to step into the garage for clean laundry. The Camp Fire seems to be finally dying down a bit which is a blessed relief. Wednesday the weather men are saying we will have rain. We had one little spit of a shower in October but otherwise, we've had nothing for half of a year. It is amazing to me that the plants can just hold their breath and wait that long but they truly can. As soon as the rain begins to fall there will be an astonishing surge of rebirth. I look forward to gray skies that are heavy with big bulging clean rain clouds and not ash, and air that feels like clean hope and not a kick to the gut. I cannot wait to hear the sound of it on the roof and have a home day with a steady drizzle on the yard and a stack of library books!

Happy Fall, everyone...I hope the rain patters on your roof, your lungs breath free, your family gathers and your books uplift you!

Foods That Comfort Me

Time for a little listology tonight. Its been a long time since I had a listy post. Been thinking about food lately, especially since we were just on a little weekend away and I was cooking for pure pleasure one night. Some people think vacation is a time to get away from food prep (and I do that too sometimes) but I find a deep enjoyment in cooking for pleasure with no time pressure or requirements. Food is a kind of art, but also a kind of loving communication. We all care for others with food. How do we care for ourselves with food? I think the notion of comfort food gets a bad rap. No need to imagine Bridget Jones gorging on a tub of ice cream while sobbing to illustrate the idea. Comfort food can be frivolous or ridiculous but it can be just as building and health giving too. The real idea is to think of what foods bring kindness to you in an intimate and reflexive way. Comfort is something our country needs a little bit of right now.

When life has handed me lemons and I am lower than low, when I wish I had a Mommy in-house to take over for the day, when I have company coming and everything is at all ends....these are my comfort foods:

• Mushrooms of any kind but especially morels, chanterelles, or oysters sauteed in butter.
• Roast Chicken....especially cooking it but eating it too. Its my tradition that I always make roast chickens for people the first time I have them over to dinner. Its my safe meal, and it makes me feel calmer to cook it.
• Early Grey Tea is my favorite flavor...its the stuff that feels like ideal winter evening or ideal summer vacation early morning or idea slow afternoon remedy. Extra cream, drizzle of honey....ice or hot. 
• Raspberries are my favorite fruit, I think. They are so delicious and totally one of things I grab for a Mommy comfort snack during a rough shopping trip to the store. 
• Eggs. Fried, boiled or scrambled....its my favorite breakfast. I eat them almost every day. I think A might have finally decided to stop complaining about it. Its just how it works. I love eggs. Blame my mama...I remember her eating them the same way when I was a kid.
• Shrimp or Crab. I like them canned, fresh and frozen and all the better for a little melted butter and squeeze of lemon at the end of a hard day. 
• Coffee. It has to be admitted that I drink it not only for the caffeine but for the comforting, nurturing ritual of the whole affair. Nobody loves you quite like your coffee pot some mornings.
• Goat's Milk is a throwback favorite to my early childhood. When I was a little girl we had goats and that was the only drinking milk I really had. It must have imprinted deep or else the romanticism of the idea lodged in my mind....in either case, a glass of warm goat's milk makes me feel okay in short order.
• Sprouts, are always the very most fragrant, delicate and tender of the leafy greens. I love all kinds of sprouts: sunflower, radish, pea, bean etc. I feel like I am getting the most intense shots of nutrition and the most gentle and motherly of foods (no tough chewing, just all melty, baby sweetness) both at once. 
• Chocolate Croissants or Pain Chocolate, if you're being properly French. I know they aren't good for me but they make me feel like a Dutchess who will make it through her trials. 
• Chocolate Chips + Coconut Flakes + Coconut Oil + Tigernut Flour, melted in the microwave and stirred until a melty, chocolaty goo, eaten with a very small spoon, huddled in the kitchen after the kids are in bed.
• Avocado, with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of sea salt, eaten right out of the skin with a spoon is a really big favorite of mine. I've been known to eat them in the car, pack them for picnics or even take them camping. 

What do you eat or cook to bring yourself some measure of safety and love? 

The Most Perfect Chicken Breast Of All Time.

Google has shined upon me and the produce of my search bar must be shared. I have found the secret to pan-sauteeing chicken boneless skinless chicken breast into tender, juicy deliciousness. No more rubbery, dry, frustrating cuts....and yes, I know that using thigh meat is a good alternative. Still.  Sometimes, nothing beats the price or the hefty simplicity or light flavor of breast meat. This approach is really brilliant. Nothing is added to it, not even water and no sauce to dress it up or crazy equipment....just perfect, perfect directions. Its never tough, never dry and never pink in the middle.

I have made it four times now with effortless reproductibility. Easy, clear and perfect for so many uses. It makes the best salad topping meat, taco filling, or addition to spaghetti sauce. I can batch cook several this way and then we're good for finger food for picnics or freezer meals for a while.

You must try this.

The kitchen gods will sing arias over your stove too!!!

Faith Durand over at The Kitchn is a brilliant, brilliant genius...and is the mastermind behind these very direct and foolproof directions. There are pictures and numbered steps and its all on one page. I'm not sure how she could make it better.

Check it out. Perfect Chicken Breast.

Eating The Jack-O-Lanterns!

You mustn't be a miser with your pumpkins. I am not for stingy frugality....the kind of frugal that means you keep the plastic on your furniture and yell at people for turning in the heat. I do love a deep useful, make-do kind of a mindset, on the other hand! I think that kind of thinking is at the root of my love of thrifting, foraging and making things myself. Its capability and cleverness that saves money but also makes the impossible reachable and attainable.

Love to live that way.

As I said about the pumpkins....there's no need to skimp....get big plump ones for your kids to carve and let them sit out front with each little silhouette design glowing proudly but then.....when the candy has been gorged on and the trick-or-treaters are gone....really impress your kids! Is it over for the pumpkins? Are they ready for the trash? NO way!

Bring those suckers into the kitchen and have a go at capability yourself! Eat the jack-o-lanterns!

I cut the pumpkin into chunks with a paring knife that are about the size of my palm. Then with said knife or with a vegetable peeler (I adore this one....so sharp and efficient!) get all the rind off. Then a quick rinse if you like and chunk it up and toss it into a pot over medium low heat with three or four cups of water. Don't worry about the inside of the pumpkin being shrivelled and kind of leathery and dried out....it will rehydrate and cook down just fine. The other thing that shouldn't go into the pot of actually moldy bits or rind, besides that....it can all stew. Keep adding chunks until you fill the pot and let it simmer at a low heat (adding water any time it gets low,  until all the pieces are soft when speared with a knife and they are starting to come apart. This was kind of an all day process at our house today. Makes for a yummy smelling house! Made me happy to open the door to the piano teacher today when the kitchen was all pumpkiny and sweet.

So then....do whatever you'd like with the resulting pumpkin meat! Snack this afternoon was little ramikins of stewed pumpkin with a dollup of butter and some salt and a spoon each. Very cozy....especially with a mug of tea. You can serve it for dinner just like that in a big bowl. You can also put it in bags in the freezer for later meals, in that simple state. You can also have a homemade pumpkin pie with your own pumpkin pulp....Ru's jack-o-lantern made it to pie form at our house tonight which was a great coup for him. I used this recipe from Mommypatamus. Just remember that the pie you make won't be as dark and vibrant an orange as one you'd make from canned pumpkin....that's because canned pumpkin isn't pumpkin. Libby's packs butternut squash which has a higher sugar content, richer flavor and deeper color than your jack-o-lantern meat. Nothing to worry about, just a heads up for expectations.

Another super simple option is to make pumpkin butter. This means stirring as much sweetner as you like (I love honey or maple syrup) into the cooked pumpkin and adding cloves, ginger and cinnamon and pureeing in a food processor or with a stick blender, right in the pot. Its great on biscuits and other breads, stirred into  oatmeal or plain yogurt and or just eaten out of the spoon like you would apple sauce. Hope your Halloween was fun and that the holiday stress ahead of you keeps its distance for a while. May the pumpkin simmering on your stove slow down time and give you some sweetly scented now to carry you through.

I Can Have Cookies Magically

We are hitting new stages at our house all the time due to four little boys who are constantly upping their game and discovering the world. This week we reached the, "Bake Their Own Cookies" stage. Ru asked me if he could make cookies and told me that since he knows how to read decently now and he could tell that I was working on dinner...he'd do it alone!

And then, because he's a total extrovert who always feels better working in a crowd he recruited all of his brothers to be a part of the occasion, including the naked, potty training toddler. Ha!

It was amazing! He found the recipe, read it, got out all the ingredients, made the cookies and put them in the oven and then cleaned up the work area!

Voila! Life is amazing. He's 8 and we can have fresh cookies whenever we say the word.

Sexy Crockpot Yogurt

Crock pots are like the minivans of the kitchen.
They save your tail and you thank your lucky stars that you have one.....quietly, behind the scenes....because they are embarrassingly not chic, crunchy, artsy or hip. We all save the day by making dinner on the countertop while we are away and we all love the way it saves money and hassle and energy. But, its just one of those things you do mid-week for sanity. Its not funky or edgy or hip.

Today I am using my slow cooker in a way that will be coolness reputation enhancing. I am making my own yogurt (Greek yogurt if I feel really, really hip tomorrow morning) in a crockpot.

Yogurt is sexy.

 I'll tell you how it worked out at breakfast time. Not that we'll eat it at breakfast. Room temp yogurt is impossibly non-chic. We will chill it and eat it at lunch or another breakfast....which means I really won't get to tell you how it tasted until....well....whenever.

Anyhow. Am making yogurt in my crock pot. Am cool. And frugal. And sexy. Am forging unseen paths through the New Year with 1950's gadgets of ill-repute!



Wanna try it too?

Here's how....

• Fill crockpot with 8 cups of milk. 


• Set the temp to "Low" and let the milk warm for 2.5 hours. 


• Turn off and let it sit for 3 hours with the lid on.


• Stir in 1/2 cup of store-bought yogurt for starter.


• Wrap the covered crockpot in a big, snuggly bath towel and leave it for 8-12 hours.


• In the morning line a strainer with cheesecloth or some scrap bed-sheet material and let the yogurt slowly drain to desired consistency. (Greek yogurt is just drained longer)

Go us! We can all be artistic, hippy, crockpot people! Anyone else have any really fun, offbeat ways to use a crockpot? Lemme hear 'em!

My Autumn Food List

A few years ago I brainstormed the idea of a seasonal food list for the side of the fridge. The idea is to "keep in mind" visually all the cozy, traditional foods that we keep dreaming of when we long for Autumn. I also really love the fact that it does a tiny bit of keeping me on track with local/seasonal eating. No better way to check off "apple dumplings"  than to turn it into a trip to the Farmer's Market or the local orchard! Compiling the list is also a fun exercise in self-examination. What speaks Autumn to me personally? What traditional Fall foods are not compelling for me but seem culturally obligatory? Ha! Mental purging! Sometimes I have a particular food that I crave and love but I don't know what time of year it "fits" in so researching its seasonality (mussels in white wine sauce was one for me) ends up being a bite-sized education. I now know that mussels are in season in Autumn. 

The first year I drew up my lists it took up a little bit of my time....but now I just have all the lists saved on my computer and I just review the appropriate list, add or remove whatever seems right and hit PRINT. The list lives on the side of the fridge and I use it when planning menus for the week or dreaming up special dishes for company. Then I keep a pen handy for scratching things off as they show up on our table. So fun! Here's my Autumnal version....

Autumnal Food

Pear Tart

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Stuffed Figs

Cinnamon Pork Chops

Cheese with Apples

Mussels and Crusty French Bread

Oyster Mushrooms Fried with Bacon

Sausages w/ Caramelized Onions

Slow Roasted Ribs

Roast Quail

Apple Dumplings

Fresh Plums

Plum Tart

Apple Turnovers

Raspberry Jam

Mulled Cider

Roast Beets

Venison Tenderloin

Braised Rabbit

Black Bean Soup

Roasted Garlic

Cranberry Bar Cookies

Buckwheat Pancakes

Scrambled Eggs W/Mushrooms

Apple Galette

Fresh Apple Cider @ The Mill

Spicy Muffins

Carrot Cake

Swedish Meatballs

Chili w/Cornbread

Pumpkin Bread

Honeybaked Ham

Chai Tea

Apple Cider Donuts

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Pot Roast

Butternut Squash Soup

Braised Pork Belly

Pumpkin Waffles

Apple Crisp

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Acorn Squash w/ Cinnamon and Maple Syrup

 Bouf Bourguignon

Cranberry Coffee Cake

Concord Grapes

Goat Cheese Cheesecake

Pumpkin Fudge

What would make your list?

 

Salad Proficiency

There is the feel of spring in the air. It's warm! Hooray time for salad! Every time I step out the door some green shoot is taller or more visible or sporting buds. Pretty soon I'll be mulling over which greens to pop into our collection of raised beds.

This week when I made my little sojourn to the library and stood musing in front of the home decorating/ gardening/cooking shelf on the New Arrivals bookcase, I saw Patricia Wells' book, Salad As A Meal. I snapped it up. Soup and salad have been my major handicaps as a cook for years and so I still jump at solutions or advice in those categories. Even though the author on the cover looks a bit nervous, the recipes inside are wonderful! I can't wait to try them all out. Here's a sneak peek:

• Chicken Salad W/ Green Beans Tahini Lemon Dressing and Cilantro
• Lime and Lemongrass Cured Beef Salad
• Potato Salad W/ Capers, Spring Onions and Mint
• Crab, Avocado and Quinoa Salad W/ Technicolor Tomatoes
• Canteloupe, Tomato, Goat Cheese, Cucumber Salad
• Fig, Sheep Cheese, Pomegranate, Arugula and Kumquat Salad

I could go on and on. Apparently Ms. Wells is a fairly lauded authoress and quite well known in the food world. She won a James Beard Award (the highest cookbook honor) for her 1996 tome Patricia Wells, At Home In Provence. Maybe I have more reading to do.

 I thought I'd share one of the two salads I can turn out with great ease. This dish make me feel like a summer queen. It is simple: spinach, berries (all kinds work, I always try to work in two colors: blackberries and strawberries, raspberries and blueberries...etc.), crumbles of goat cheese and dressing. I'm not sure who thought this one up but it wasn't me...someone somewhere invented it and it's all over the place. I used to always make this with a sugar loaded poppy seed dressing which is lip-smackingly delicious but really only got use in our house for this single recipe and contained a truckload of sweetener to boot. (No wonder it tasted so great!) I stopped buying the dressing and making this salad for a while which felt sad.

Then I ran across this magical bottle of balsamic reduction and bought it for use in sauces and such and one day I had a desperate yen for my salad and tried the reduction instead of the old bottled dressing of yore. It was divine. There's no added sugar in balsamic vinegar, nothing in fact except for vinegar but it gives a wonderful sweet flavor with the hit of tang the dish needs. I'm home free! I love solutions.

Thanksgiving Dreaming

A new stove is on it's way! We've picked one and ordered the shining beauty and it will bring it's magical goodness to the heart of our home on Saturday. I cannot wait to have a reliable cooking source again.

Image by Lane & Anne via Flickr

I have started mulling over what to make for Thanksgiving and am all salivatory over the possibilities. This year will be our virgin effort for local, "just us" and no-travel Thanksgiving celebration. I cannot wait to roast a turkey myself, to serve up a heap of fluffy mashed potatoes and to decide which rolls to make. How do you decide? I think I need more guests. There are not enough people in our house to eat all the things I want to make. There are the standards: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, stuffing pumpkin pie and then the delectable sounding options for adding to the menu....maybe stuffed mushroom caps, a fantastic cheese plate and some sort of veggie dish. How to decide? Roasted cauliflower with curried spices? Caramelized brussels sprouts with toasted pecans? Steamed green beans tossed with olive oil and roasted garlic? *sigh*

Me helping with Armstrong Thanksgiving (photo credit to my sister-in-law Jane)

Bri-en-croute is a must, right? And some kind of sparkling juice so the kids can join in toasting...and then what about a fresh salad. That sounds imperative after all those heavy, warm foods. Greens with pomegranate, fresh pear, goat cheese, burrata, beet slices, persimmon...oh heavens! And maybe Oyster Rockefeller for a New England touch? How will I choose?

Megaman carves the bird of 2009 (photo credit to Jane again!)

 I cannot wait for that stove to get here. I need to do some serious elimination and recipe testing. And what bliss, to have a broiler for toasting things, a working temperature gauge and an oven timer that works, right on the top. I cannot wait!

Thankgiving Feast afterglow... (Jane again!)

I realize that you might think I'm a bit over the top, after all...it's not even November, I have three small children and I've never even made a Thanksgiving Day meal before. That list makes me sound bonkers but, truly, Rome was not won in a day, a girl with three kids has to plan ahead...well ahead. And I don't believe in defeatist thinking so who cares about the "never have's" and the fact that I am a young mother to several. I believe in full-on-insanity in terms of ambitious and adventuresome celebration, so bring on the turkey!

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Sundried Tomatoes, Sans-Sun

It's tomato season...we're rolling in them. I am to the stage where I have started packing a small container of tomatoes to take with us when we leave...just in case any of our friends want tomatoes. (Yay friends!) Almost time for making tomato sauce. I'd be all over it this week except we're wildly busy with Vacation Bible School at church every single day so, all other major accomplishments (hello Laundry!) are out for a while. Next week will be sauce week, and our counter will be splashed with tomato seeds, and we'll have tomato skins dropped all over the kitchen floor and the house will smell like tangy, sweet sauce for days on end, long after the jars are sealed and rinsed and making their way to the pantry shelves.

 But, I just couldn't wait to do something with tomatoes...they beg to be used, and loved and enjoyed. So, I decided to try making my own "sundried" tomatoes. It's been raining this week and the heat is finally down a bit so I decided to skip doing it outdoors (maybe another year) and just do it simply, in my oven.

Now, this week is insanity at our house so low key was really important if I was going to be working on anything at all. Is tomato sauce intimidating but you'd like to dip your toe in the water of food preservation and old fashioned home-making skills? Dry a few tomatoes. They're dead easy and so luscious good.

 I took some really beautiful plum tomatoes (from the Farmer's Market, not our garden) and sliced them in half. I laid them on a cake rack, to give them good air circulation, set it in a cookie sheet....and popped the whole shooting match into my oven on the lowest setting which on my oven is 150 degrees Farenheit.

They slowly, slowly wrinkle and darken and after a day or so, depending on the humidity, the moisture content of the tomatoes, the heat level of your lowest oven setting...etc. they'll be done! I rotated the cookie sheet around in a circle sometimes to make sure they dried evenly, and towards the end I checked more frequently so that I could start picking finished tomatoes off the sheet as they started to stagger towards done. I turned my oven off at night just because that's a long time of unsupervised cooking and I worried they'd finish somewhere around 3AM and then keep toasting away till I woke up and found them sadly dark and hard. When they're finished they're this sumptuous lipstick red, beautiful, just teetering on the edge of burgundy. And the flavor has intensified to a wonderfully  deep, zippy sweet...almost like fruit leather.

You know they're done when they feel like nice flexible, leathery dried fruit....nothing gushy left to them. I am keeping these in a ziploc bag in the fridge at the moment but next week...when all that tomato canning happens, I'm planning to take them up to the next level and try making this amazing looking tomato confit with them....slobber slobber slobber! I forgot to pick up a couple of heads of garlic at the Farmer's Market today but otherwise I have all of the ingredients ready and waiting...it's just a matter of time.