Scary Dinner

We have lots of traditions in my family.  Jewish holiday dinners, spending summer days by the pool reading gossip magazines, opening a box of chocolates, taking a bite and putting them back.  Hey, I didn’t say they were all good traditions!  My husband has a few family traditions.  Making Christmas lists (I just don’t get that one), Thanksgiving at his Aunt’s house, Christmas Day at his Cousin’s house, the Christmas gift that’s hidden.

Sadly, we don’t have that many together.  We’ve co-opted some from each of our families of birth but we’re still creating our own for our little family of three.  One such tradition will be, I suspect, Halloween dinner.  I already posted here about last year’s dinner, born out of a need to “nest” because I was pregnant and had some time on my hands.  I did it again this year, slightly less successfully- I suspect that having an actual child rather than just carrying one around cut into my free time….

We had carrot fingers:

Ingredients: baby carrots, cream cheese, sliced almonds and ranch dressing (or whatever kind of dressing you’d like to eat with your carrots)

Directions: smear a small amount of cream cheese on the end of a carrot.  Place a sliced almond, pointy side out, on top of the cream cheese.  Shudder at how much it actually resembles a finger.

Ghostly Potoatos:

Recipe here.

Frankenpeppers

Adapted (in that I left some stuff out) from a recipe in the October 2010 Vegetarian Times

Ingredients:

Red Peppers (one for each person)

Spaghetti or angel hair pasta, I used about a 1/2 box for four peppers

4 Tb creamy peanut butter

2 Tb soy sauce

2 tsp. sesame oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp agave nectar or honey

1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced

4-6 cherry tomatoes, diced

A few slices of white cheese (I used cheddar)

one sheet of nori (dried seaweed used for sushi)

Directions:

Cook pasta according to package.  When you drain it, save about a half a cup of the cooking water.  I actually used the same water I had used for boiling my potatos which means that I had added some chicken bouillon to it.  I’m not sure if this really made a difference in the taste (it definitely made it not vegetarian) but I figure full disclosure, right?

Wash the peppers well- if you have fruit and veggie wash, use that to try to get the wax off.  Chop off the top of the peppers and scrape out the seeds and yucky white parts.  Attempt to stand the peppers up.  If they don’t stand straight, you can slice off a little of the bottom so that they do.

In a bowl mix together the soy sauce, peanut butter, pasta water, rice vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, and agave nectar (or honey).  It will be sort of chunky at first but will smooth out as you whisk it.  Let it stand for a few minutes and it will thicken just slightly.  Mix it with the pasta so that the pasta is coated.  Add the cucumber and tomato.  Using tongs, pack it into the peppers.

Cut out mouth and eye shapes from the slices of cheese.  I think mine would have looked better had I used bigger pieces.  Plus it would have been much easier to work with.  Use a dab of peanut butter to stick the pieces to the faces of the peppers. If you can figure it out, cut pieces of the nori to make teeth, eyebrows, pupils, etc.  Again, it was too small for me to really do a successful job.  Next time I might use black sesame seeds.  Or just make bigger pieces.  It also might make more sense to do what the recipe suggested which was to put the pasta in last- in my mind I wanted them filled first but that made it hard to work with the peppers.

Tarantula cookies

Recipe here. It suggests using red hots for the eyes but I was shopping at Whole Foods and so had to improvise with some Annie’s Fruit Bunnies.  I think red hots would have been better, as would thinner pretzels.  Also, when you go to coat them in chocolate, don’t pour over as the recipe says.  Instead, use a pastry brush to sort of glob the chocolate on- otherwise you just end up wasting a whole bunch of it.  And this takes a lot of sprinkles.  Lots. Mine definitely weren’t as nice as the ones that epicurious made but, hey, I have no food stylist at my house!

In this one, you can see the eyes a bit better.

And finally, she’s cute enough to eat.  The cutest baby in the world in her first Halloween costume:

You can't see it here, but I actually made the tail for her costume. Well, a friend made the tail and I attached it. It's really cute!

Happy Halloween!!!!

 

Uncles

My mother has two brothers.  She’s the oldest and then there’s P. and then the baby of family, A.  My mother also has an “adopted” brother, S.  S. is Japanese and was on the wrestling team in high school with P.  S. didn’t like the family he was boarding with and spent so much time at the house that he eventually moved in and became one of the family.  Really.  My grandmother even learned how to say, “Wake up, S.” in Japanese and how to make sushi.  But that’s another story, for another post.

My uncles are hard livin’ kind of men.  They smoke, they drink, they ride motorcycles.  In fact, all the men in my family are cut from the same cloth, even if some of the details are different.  Our long standing joke is how homey it felt for me after my grandfather died and everyone came home a year later for the unveiling.  I came downstairs at 9am to my dad standing in the kitchen, in his boxers and t-shirt, cooking bacon and drinking beer, my uncles P. and A. at the kitchen table with their coffee mugs, bottle of whiskey and the go board out and my uncle S. face down, asleep on the living room floor, beer just out of reach of his hand.  My family isn’t for everyone but it’s certainly for me.

My Uncle P. is my favorite uncle.  My relationship with A. is complicated due to choices he’s made that I’ve struggled with and my relationship with S. is good but a bit distant as I don’t see him or email with him as often.  P. was the middle child and first boy, so he had the honor and burden of paving the way for his younger brother(s).  My grandparents were wonderful people but my grandfather could be difficult.  It wasn’t easy for P. and as a result, he’s one of the most interesting and smartest people I know. He’s also had an amazingly interesting life which I’m only just now hearing stories about- I cornered him this summer and made him tell me his stories.  I got to hear about him traveling around the country on his bike, about spending time in Alaska, about living in Canada and about different brawls and fights.  I also got to hear about the people he’s loved along the way.

He’s a set of contradictions.  He’s tough and gruff (he hung around with a motorcycle gang for a long time but didn’t join because he didn’t want to have to back them up in a fight if he felt like it was started for a stupid reason.  Which is not to say that he didn’t fight.  Apparently he once dropped a television on someone’s head.) but really sweet and gentle.  He loves motorcycles and fast cars (when I was little he lived across the street from us and used to take me to school in his red corvette), tequila and smoking.  He also loves animals and flying model planes.  He worked with computers long before the dot-com boom and he programmed my grandparents’ computer to talk with me when I was little (I’d type in “Hi” and the computer would print, “Hi, will you be my friend?” across the screen. And then it would play a guessing game with me.  It wasn’t nearly as creepy as it sounds now- this was before we felt like computers would take over the world).  He is impatient with people but has boundless patience for animals.  Or for figuring out how something works.  He is extremely stoic and extremely generous.  He’s not someone you’d figure out just by looking at him.

To demonstrate, this is my uncle P. with his newest bike:

And this is also my uncle P., with my daughter when she was about 4 months old:

I think P. is my favorite because as a child I was told not to bother him since he didn’t like kids.  As a result, I grew up a little afraid of him.  We saw him often because he lived across the street from us for several years but I have very few memories of spending time with him.  When he would drive me to school, I’d sit really quietly, afraid to annoy or bother him.  As an adult, I started to get to know him when I was in college and have really valued the times I’ve sat, talking with him at the kitchen table.  He’s not someone who’s warm and fuzzy but he is someone who cares about his family deeply.  I’m tearing up as I write that but don’t want to share how I know.  Suffice to say I’ve witnessed some displays of emotion I wouldn’t have thought would come from him.

P. started riding motorcycles because he really wanted a horse.  My grandparents couldn’t afford one so he got a motorcycle instead.  I guess I can see that- it’s probably a very similar feeling when you’re going fast.  I wouldn’t know as the last time I rode a horse I was 12 and it was on a trail in Colorado and I’ve never been on a bike.  I’m scared to be on a bike but if I were ever going to ride one, it would be with my uncle P.  Maybe it’ll be on my life list.  On my living room wall, I have a contract typed up and signed by my uncle P. and my grandparents outlining the rules and use of his first motorcycle (I think he was 16).  Among the things listed are, “No leather jacket.  Not to play the part of a toughie.”  One of my most valued possessions for several years running was a black leather motorcycle jacket left here by my uncle P.  Apparently that rule didn’t get followed.

So where’s the recipe?? you ask.  It’s coming, hang on.  I asked P. what he remembered Grandma cooking.  He responded that he actually remembers Mama’s cooking better than Grandma’s, which makes sense.  So he remembered her chopped liver and her blintzes.  It’s a well-documented fact that no one makes things as well as Mama did so I will state right here and now that I didn’t even try.  But in honor of my uncle P., I did make cheese blintzes.  They probably aren’t as good as Mama’s but Uncle P. lives across the country so I couldn’t ask him to taste test for me.  I used a recipe Grandma had in her recipe box which was entitled “Al’s Crepes.”  Not sure which Al it was (we know a few) but I figured it had to be somewhat authentic since it was in her collection.  I made up my own filling, based on a bunch of recipes I’ve read over the years.

Cheese Blintzes for Uncle P.

Ingredients:

For the Crepes:

3 egg whites

2 egg yolks

pinch of salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

5 Tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon sugar

For Filling:

1 cup cottage cheese

2 eggs

4 Tablespoons cream cheese

1-2 Tablespoons sour cream

2 Tablespoons sugar

pinch of salt

Directions:

Make the crepes: Blend all crepe ingredients in the blender.  To be fair, you could probably also just whisk together if you don’t have a blender. 

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat.  Melt a tablespoon of butter in pan but don’t let it burn.  If you have a really good nonstick pan, you might be able to forgo the butter.  Pour a little bit of the crepe batter into the center of the pan and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. 

Keep swirling until it sets

Sort of hard to swirl and photograph at the same time but you get the idea.

 

and then let it cook for just a minute or two, until it starts to brown slightly.

Flip it over- carefully!  I used a spatula and my fingers to flip mine but the difficulty will depend on how thin you’ve made it- and let it cook for a minute.

You want it to be cooked but not brown.  Make several crepes- I gave up after about 8 but probably could have made at least 10-15, depending.  Also, account for some waste– you’ll throw away your first crepe if you’re new at this because it won’t be the right width and it’ll have holes and you’ll screw up the flipping.  It’s not hard, just takes a few tries to get the hang of it.

I'm still learning how to make the perfect crepe- as demonstrated by the varying thickness and color on these.

Make the filling:

Place the filling ingredients into a food processor.

Process until blended.  You could probably use a whisk (or blender) for this too, if you don’t have a food processor.

When the crepes are cool enough to work with but not cold, place one on a flat surface.  Put about one to two Tablespoons of filling a little below center (facing you)- how much filling will depend on how big your crepes are. 

 

Fold up and over the filling.

Fold the sides in towards the center. Fold the top down to cover the sides.

Set aside, seam down, as you make the rest.  At this point, you could freeze these to eat later.

To cook the blintzes, heat some butter and oil in a saute pan over medium heat.  I’d say between 1-2 Tablespoons of both.  This is not a low-cal meal.  You want to brown the blintzes well and it just doesn’t work as well without the oil/butter.

Place them seam side down in the pan and let them get brown and crispy.  Flip once.

I like my blintzes with sour cream but I’ve been known to eat them with applesauce or blueberry jam. The cheese gives a nice tang and the crepes are the perfect smoothness to go with it. The jam adds a nice sweetness but it’s not necessary.

Lest you forget, these are in honor of my Uncle P.  The toughest and gentlest man I’ve ever met.

 

Halloween

I think you should be able to use food to celebrate things.  I think you should be allowed to play with your food.  I think there’s no better holiday for that than Halloween.  That said, here are some Halloween foods for you to try (links to the recipes below the photos).

Ok, ok, the longer story behind this is that last Halloween I was pregnant.  I hadn’t been nesting like everyone said I would- I wasn’t cleaning more, I wasn’t decorating the baby’s room (we’re Jewish, we don’t tempt fate like that), I wasn’t knitting or sewing or anything domestic.  But I was cooking.  And I decided that what I HAD to do was make a Halloween meal.  I searched epicurious.com and other sites to find the best Halloween-themed food I could.  I was determined to have an actual meal- veggie, protein, starch, dessert.  This is what we had.  (To be honest, I can’t wait for the baby to be old enough to appreciate stuff like this!!!)

Eyeball Cupcakes (toothpicks come in handy for carefully applying the bloodshot part)

EyeBall Cupcakes here. Full disclosure?  I used both boxed cake mix and canned frosting for these- I was in it for the decorating, not the baking.  They were fabulous.  Really.

Haunted Ghostly Potatos

Ghostly Potatos here. I couldn’t get over how cute these guys were.  I almost didn’t want to eat them.  But, then again, they were potatos and my love for mashed potatos is well documented here and elsewhere.  In the end, they were dinner.  But I did feel a little badly about it.  The perils of making cute food!

Green Gruel With Eyeballs (it was actually really tasty!)

Green Gruel here.  Note:  for this one the recipe suggests hard-boiled eggs for the eyes.  I thought the idea of an egg with broccoli was revolting and instead used fresh mozzerella, which was far more appealing to me.

Mummified Meatloaf (I thought he was kind of cute)

Yummy Mummy Meatloaf here.

Start planning your Halloween meal now!!!

New York, New York

Thanksgiving was not a holiday I really remember celebrating with my grandparents. I mean, we must have at some point but I have zero memories of it.  What I do remember doing on Thanksgiving is going to New York with my mother, cousin and aunt.  The cousin and aunt lived in D.C. so we’d meet in NYC for 3-4 days of theater and hotel adventures.  We’d sometimes get there in time to see the Macy’s parade and we’d always see three or four Broadway or Off Broadway shows.  We’d eat Thanksgiving Dinner at the hotel- for many years we’d stay at the Lowe’s Summit which is no longer there, I think.  I remember their dinning room the best.

As we got older and moved out to go to college, we’d continue to meet in NYC.  Sometimes it would be all four of us, once in a while we’d add others into the mix and sometimes it would be just me and Mum.  It’s something Mum and I still do today and, if I may digress even more, my most treasured NYC trip was the one I took with my mother and my grandmother before she died.  We stayed at the Plaza, had tea in the lobby near the portrait of Eloise and just enjoyed a three-generation girls’ trip.

My mother and I travel well together. We’re pretty similar in tastes and we’re both almost always willing to eat just about anything, anywhere.  We’ve had fabulous meals in Chinatown, gourmet pizza in Chelsea, French food at Chez Josephine and roasted chestnuts on the street.  There is one cuisine that we don’t eat much of, my mother and I, and that’s Indian.  I’m not sure why- it’s just one of those things that we don’t think of very often.  Neither one of us is able to eat really spicy things and I think the few times I’ve had Indian food I’ve had some, let’s call it gastrointestinal distress, afterwards.  Mum too.

But on one NYC trip we decided to give it a shot.  We ate at an expensive, very beautiful, very swanky Indian restaurant.  It was on the top floor of a hotel so the view was amazing and the decor was like a movie set- lots of dim but colorful lights, pillows, gauzy materials and beautiful women in saris.  We had a really nice waitress who helped us choose what to eat- nothing too spicy, nothing too likely to cause, ahem, distress later.  And it was delicious.  Mum and I both couldn’t believe it.  We ate with gusto and enjoyed every bite.

We did not enjoy the distress a few hours later.

So much for Indian food.

Over the years, I’ve found that I actually do like things like curries (especially Thai curries) and some of the flavors and spices that are native to Indian cuisine.  I’ve also found that if I make the food at home, I don’t experience the unpleasant aftereffects.  Maybe there’s something about small batches.  Maybe it’s psychological.  Who can tell?  All I know is that I will always remember the fancy Indian restaurant in NYC because while there was some yucky time afterwards, the hour or so we were eating was heavenly.  And it made me want to try those flavors again.

My current favorite recipe of Indian-type food is from Orangette.  It’s Chana Masala and this is the link to her recipe. I’ll post how I make it here, with my photos but it’s definitely not too far off from how she (or her husband, actually) makes it.  It’s delicious served with Na’an and it’s just the thing for a cool, crisp fall night or for a freezing cold winter’s night.

Orangette’s Chana Masala

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
¼ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp garam masala
3 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 28-ounce can whole crushed tomatos
1 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
A pinch of cayenne, or to taste
2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Directions:

Heat a heavy-bottomed (Just don’t use non-stick) pan over medium heat and add enough olive oil to nicely cover the bottom- probably about 1-3 Tablespoons, depending on the size of your pot.  Toss in the onion and let it brown up and even get sort of burned looking in some spots.  Stir often but be patient- the longer you let the onions cook, the better the flavor will be.

The onions- these probably need about 5-10 more minutes to get some really good color.

Reduce the heat to low. Add the garlic, stirring, and add a bit more oil if the pan seems dry. Add the cumin, ginger, garam masala, and cardamom pods, and let them get sort of toasty by stirring them around for about 30 seconds. Add ¼ cup water, and stir to scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook until the water has evaporated away completely.

The water is almost gone- a few more minutes should do it.

 

Add the tomatos.  Because the original recipe called for whole tomatos and the juice, I always add about a half a cup of water at this point, just to thin it out a little bit.  Add the salt.  Bring the heat back to medium and let it all boil.  Reduce the heat to low and then add the cayenne pepper.

I know, it just looks like tomato sauce. Stick with me, though, it gets really good.

 

Add the chickpeas and cook over low heat for about ten minutes. 
Stir in 2 Tablespoons of water, and cook for  five to ten minutes. Add another 2 Tablespoons of water, and cook until the water is absorbed, a few minutes more. According to Orangette, this helps build up the flavor of the sauce by concentrating it and also helps to make the chickpeas the right texture (insert one of my favorite cooking adjectives here: toothsome.).   Taste, and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

Not sure if you can tell the difference from the photo above but this is about 15 minutes later- the sauce is more flavorful and the chickpeas are- you guessed it- more toothsome.

 

I serve mine in bowls with some Na’an on the side (you can buy Na’an at Trader Joe’s or http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/ or sometimes Star Market/Shaws- just brush it with a little olive oil and put in the oven for about 5- 10 minutes to heat up.  Delish!) and with a dollop of plain greek yogurt or sour cream mixed into it.  The dairy adds a nice tang and a smoothness that offsets the tart-sweet-spicy tomato-spice mixture.  Apparently you could skip the dairy and just squeeze some lemon over it but I’ve not tried it that way.  I like my dairy.

 

Epic Cake Fail

So my husband had a bad day today.  In fact, he’s had a bad few days recently.  Adding up to a pretty bad month.  Stress with work, school and various car issues have made it difficult for him to maintain his cool.  Today was particularly bad in that he locked his keys in his truck while it was running after already feeling stressed out about finishing a paper and getting to school.

I decided to make him a cake to help him feel better.  Especially since the dinner I made was not one of his favorites (chana masala which I will post about soon).  I wandered over to the Hungry Hippo because I remembered a birthday cake recipe.  All was going well until I got to the part about greasing and flouring the pans.  “Eh,” I thought to myself, flippantly, “I’ll just spray ‘em with Pam. I won’t bother flouring or using parchment paper.  That’ll be fine.”

Alas, fine it was not.  The cakes stuck and could not be unstuck successfully.  So in the end my husband had a pile of cake with frosting.  It tasted good but wasn’t so pretty.

Oh, I can hear you saying, “It’s not so bad…. a little messy but not that bad.”   Yes, it was That Bad:

See?  It’s just piles of cake bits with some frosting applied not-so-carefully with my fingers.

Oh well, sometimes life is like that.  Even in Australia.

The moral of the story? If you make the Hippo’s cake, follow her directions.  Don’t try to be all independent and special.  The Hippo knows of what she speaks.  Do as she says.

Risotto- The New Easy

I’m sure you’ve heard how difficult risotto is to make.  The stirring!  The measuring!  The stirring! The time!  The stirring!  Well, you’ve heard wrong and I will prove it to you.  But first, of course, a story.

My mother does not like to cook.  Well documented all over this blog.  True story.  When I was growing up, we ate out or at my grandmother’s or I cooked.  It was just How It Was.  And it wasn’t bad- I love Chinese food, Friendly’s and take-out of all kinds.  My grandmother was close by and it was free.  Plus it was always fun to sit around the table listening to Mom and Grandpa discussing her students.

But every once in a while, Mum would try to change.  She’d get on a healthy food kick or she’d decide that she needed to make dinner.  And once, oh, once, she and her friend (who was single and also disliked cooking) took a gourmet cooking class.

Let me say it again, for those of you that know my mother, she took a gourmet cooking class. At a culinary school.

Before anyone gets all excited thinking that Mum is now a gourmet chef, let me tell you how it went.  She and her friend did all the prep work and other people cooked the food.  She came home with a booklet of recipes for things like white chocolate hazelnut mousse and mushroom risotto.  Mum promptly handed it to me, with the recipes that had been really good circled.  She knew her limits.

She raved about the risotto.  This was about, oh, 20 years ago, when risotto was the hot new food fad.  I read the recipe and said there was no way I had the patience to make that.  So Mum made it.  No, really.  It wasn’t bad, just a little bland.  And I couldn’t quite tell what the big deal was- it just seemed like rice to me.  She didn’t bother making it again- my less than positively overwhelmed reaction didn’t match the amount of work she’d put into it.

Fast forward to now when risotto is ubiquitous and not so exciting.  Risotto, both good and bad, can be had at just about any Italian-themed restaurant you can find.  The really good stuff is creamy and flavorful without being overdone.  The bad stuff is mushy and flavorless.  Of course, I’m hard-pressed to find a starch I don’t like so even the bad risotto is fine with me.

And me?  Well, I’ve gotten over my fear of the stirring, the time and ingredients.  I make risotto quite often in the fall and winter as it’s pretty versatile and will accept differing flavors- my current favorite is squash, either delicata or butternut.  I don’t stand over it stirring- I’ve perfected a less intensive method of cooking.  And of course, Mum loves my risotto.  Especially since she didn’t have to make it.

A word about the squash.  Butternut is the most commonly found- you can even buy it pre-peeled and pre-chopped and I will not judge you if you do so as it’s a big time saver.  I’ll warn you, however, that often the pre-chopped, pre-peeled chunks are a bit dry and can’t match the rich, buttery, sweet taste and texture of a fresh squash.  Anyway, delicata are smaller and sort of bumpy, more gourd-like, if that makes sense.  And try to the name, they have a sweet delicate flavor, a little less rich than the butternut but good in a more subtle way.  Frankly, when cooked correctly, both varieties are like candy- sweet, soft, slightly sticky and just…..good.

Butternut (or Delicata) Squash Risotto

Ingredients

2-4 delicata squash, peeled, seeds/pulp removed and cut into bite size pieces  OR

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeds/pulp removed and cut into chunks

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

olive oil (some for the rice, some for the squash- probably about 1/4 cup in all)

1/2 cup white wine (I use Riesling)

2 1/2 – 3 cups chicken (or veggie) broth

1 cup arborio rice

1/2 c.-1 c. grated parmesan cheese

salt, pepper, sugar (optional)

Prepare squash.  For delicata, heat a bit of olive oil (maybe 1-2 Tablespoons) in a saute pan over medium heat.  When the oil is sort of shimmery, add the bite size pieces of squash.  Let them brown and caramelize  but don’t let them burn.  You’ll need to stir them and once they’ve browned on both sides, turn the heat to low and just let them soften.  Depending on the size of your pieces it will take between 5 and 15 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  I also like to sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over the squash as they’re cooking to encourage the browning/caramelization.

For butternut, preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Toss squash chunks with olive oil, salt and pepper and place on a baking sheet.  I like to sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar over them, again  to encourage the browning/caramelization.  Roast in the oven until brown and soft, again depending on the side of your chunks- maybe 15 to 25 minutes.  (When I did this the other night, I roasted the squash the night before and then threw it in a saute pan to heat up as I was making the rice- it’s a nice do-ahead)

Either way, set squash aside to cool slightly.

Heat 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil in a pot over medium high heat.  Add the onion and let it soften but don’t let it brown or burn.  Once the onion is soft, add the rice and stir it around for 1-2 minutes.  You just want to sort of toast the grains, not brown or burn them. 

Add the wine and stir.  If you want to be really fancy, heat the chicken (or veggie) broth before you add it to the rice.  Add the broth about a half a cup at a time.  Stir often and add the next bit of broth when you can see the bottom of the pot as you’re stirring.

Kind of hard to take a photo while stirring but see how you can see the bottom of the pot through the rice? That's when you add more broth.

Do this until all the broth has been used up and absorbed.  You’re looking for rice that’s not mushy but is soft and sort of  chewy yet firm- kind of just past al dente, if that makes any sense.  When I made this the other day, it took me about 20 minutes from the wine to the end of the broth.  You may want to adjust the heat down, as you don’t want it to be rapidly boiling, just hot enough to cook but not so hot that the liquid is evaporating before it can be absorbed.

In terms of stirring, you could stand in front of it and stir it constantly.  This encourages the starch to develop and makes it creamy.  I don’t do this because I am constantly multi-tasking while cooking- talking on the phone, listening to NPR, playing with or feeding the baby, etc.  Instead, I stir it each time I walk past it and try to keep an eye on it as I’m doing other things.  It’s important not to let it scorch at the bottom so lots of stirring will prevent that.

This is when I've added all the broth and it's almost done- probably only needs another minute or so before I stir in the cheese and the squash.

Stir in the cheese and season with salt and pepper to taste. I use a microplane to grate my cheese- makes it more fluffy and somehow makes you have more with less.  Plus, it melts more quickly and you don’t end up with chunks of unmelted cheese which in this case would ruin the texture. 

Finally, add the squash and stir gently to coat all the pieces with the creamy rice.  The squash will be sort of melty and the rice will provide a sort of chewy/firm texture.  Paired with the saltiness of the parm cheese it’s just delicious.  The perfect thing for a chilly night.

I probably should've used a different color plate- this one matches the squash but makes the photo very one-toned. It was still yummy.

Showing My Love

Almost 11 years ago, I met my husband.  We were young- 23 and 24- and spent a lot of time drinking, playing pool and eating out.  When I first met him, his tastes ran toward Pizzeria Uno or Applebees.  That changed quickly as my tastes run more towards Legal Seafood and Golden Temple. (Though, to be fair, I also enjoy chicken tenders and a sundae at Friendly’s as well as various meals at hole-in-the-wall unknown places)  As time has gone on, he’s become more adventurous food-wise and I’ve become more tolerant of his less, um, refined tastes.

In fact, I even make his favorite meal from those days once in a while, just to remind him how lucky he is to have me. Or, you know, to show I love him.  His favorite go-to meal at a chain like Uno’s or Applebees is the chicken, broccoli, pasta that’s on every menu.  It’s generally in a creamy kind of sauce and it’s generally not that good.  Or maybe that’s just the snob in me talking.  I’ve had it made well in small italian places in the North End- the sauce is creamy but not thick, flavorful but not overpowering.  Either way, it’s not really a dish you want to have too often- it is completely NOT low-calorie.

When I make it, I go heavy on the broccoli and lighter on the pasta.  Sometimes I’ll throw in other veggies- red pepper and spinach usually- but this time around I was inspired to make it because of the enormous head of broccoli given to me by my BFF in NH (I also made some very good broccoli and cheese soup).  Seriously, I’ve never seen a head of broccoli this big.  I don’t know what she’s using in her garden to get her veggies this big.  It’s really something.  Here it is, next to my daughter for scale:

Chicken Broccoli and Pasta

1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs or chicken tenders

1-2 cups flour

salt, pepper, garlic powder, seasoned salt

1-2 lb broccoli cut into small florets

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 large onion, chopped

3 tablespoons flour

1-3 cups chicken broth

1-2 cups milk

1/2 – 1 c. grated parmesan cheese

Olive oil

1/2- 1 package ziti or penne

Directions

This is a dish that uses a lot of pots and pans, a lot of counter space and has lots of steps.  Totally worth it but read it all the way through before starting.  In order, you want to make the sauce, make the pasta, make the chicken and cook the broccoli.  In a perfect world, the pasta and broccoli will be ready at the same time, the sauce will be warm and the chicken will be warm but not hot so that when it’s all mixed together it’s the right temperature.

Start with the sauce.  In a large saucepan over medium high heat, melt the 3 tablespoons of butter and then add the onion, letting it soften. 

Don’t let it brown, just let it get soft.  Sprinkle the 3 tablespoons of flour over the onion and use a whisk to incorporate the flour and the butter.  I use a ball whisk so that flour doesn’t get stuck inside the whisk.  Let this cook for a minute or two, just to get the raw flour taste out.  Add about 1/2 a cup of the chicken broth and whisk well to get out the lumps.  It’ll thicken up quickly so keep more of the broth handy so that you can continue to add it while whisking until the lumps are out and it has a sauce kind of consistency.  If you’re making a lot of sauce, use all three cups.  If you’re not, you can probably get away with two cups.

Once you’ve added all the broth, add the milk.  Continue to stir over medium heat. The mixture will be thin and then, as it heats, will thicken.  You want to make sure it doesn’t scorch on the bottom so keep stirring. Again, if you’re making a lot of sauce, use all the milk, if not, then use less.  Mostly, the milk gives it a creamy flavor while the creamy texture comes from the flour/butter (roux) mixture.

Once the mixture is thick and creamy, add the cheese and stir.  Taste and adjust with salt and pepper (and maybe more cheese.  I like a lot of cheese).  Set the sauce aside, off the heat.  Stir it once in a while as you make the rest of the food.

Cut chicken into small, bite size-ish pieces.

 

Ah, raw chicken. Make sure to wash your hands well after touching it.

 

Into a big ziplock bag, put 1 cup of flour and 1 tablespoon of salt, pepper, garlic powder and seasoning salt (feel free to play with these- you may not want regular salt if you use the seasoning salt- or you may want to leave out the garlic or add in something else).  Place the chicken pieces into the bag, shaking them around to coat them lightly a la the old Shake n’ Bake. Really, you’re just looking for a very light coating.

Heat a saute pan over medium high heat and add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Place the floured chicken pieces into the pan and brown on each side. 

Because you’ve cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, they should cook through pretty quickly.  Remove from pan and place on plate.  Repeat until all chicken is cooked.  Put a pot of water on to boil.  Add a handful of salt. Once it’s boiling, add your pasta- I tend to use wheat pasta in a clumsy attempt to be healthier.  The night I made this, we didn’t have any penne or ziti so I had to use linguine.  I do prefer ziti in this dish.  Anyway, cook your pasta according to the package directions.

Use a steamer basket and a saucepan with a lid to steam your broccoli for a short time, maybe 3 minutes.  The broccoli will get very green and remain crisp.  Don’t oversteam– nobody likes soggy broccoli.

Drain the pasta and put it back into its pot.  Add the cooked broccoli.  Pour the sauce over the pasta and broccoli and then add the chicken.  Stir gently so that the chicken is coated in the sauce.  Serve immediately.

 

Trust me, it's prettier with ziti.

 

October 9th

October is a tough month in our family history.  For some unknown reason many of our family members have passed away- both unexpectedly and not so unexpectedly- within the month of October.  My husband and I have done our best to re-claim the month by getting married near the end of October (three years ago now!) and, today, by arranging to have our baby blessing ceremony.

While planning it out I think I subconsciously realized the date but it wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I put it together.  While October 9th is a great day here- sun is shining, leaves are turning, it’s neither too hot nor too cold– it’s a perfect New England fall day- it is also the day that my grandmother passed away, fourteen years ago.  Since my daughter is named after my grandmother it kind of makes sense to have the blessing on the same day.  Jewish tradition says that you don’t name your children after someone who’s still alive, lest the angel of death get confused and take Baby G. rather than Grandma G., but that you can (and should) name them after someone who’s died- thus, honoring the dead and passing on some of those characteristics to the new life.

Since this blog is based on my grandmother’s recipes and stories, it seems only fitting that today’s entry show you who she was.  Here is the grandmother I didn’t know, since this was taken long before she became a grandmother:

Grandma was married to my grandfather for over 50 years.  She died shortly before their 53rd anniversary, I think.  They had three children and one “adopted” child (My uncle S.  Don’t worry, I’ll tell that story here as well since it involves some really great Japanese food!).  After the children were grown, my grandparents traveled all over the world.  Family was extremely important to them and over the years Grandma and Grandpa took in various people to stay in their home.  Each person that stayed was welcome as long as she/he needed and eventually became part of our family.  My grandparents’ home was open to all regardless of color, religion, culture, food preferences or languages spoken.  As a result, I was eight years old before I realized that not everyone had a Japanese Uncle, a Venezuelan Aunt and a cousin in Zambia.  An interesting way to grow up, to be sure.

The grandmother I knew looked like this:

 

She was kind, caring, compassionate, funny, warm, patient, open, non-judgmental, generous, fiercely loving and smart.  She always had time for me and when I was with her, I felt like I was the most important thing/person in the world.  It is because of my grandmother that I can cook but it is also because of her that I know what it feels like to be loved unconditionally.  She was the matriarch of our family and it was because of her that I have the stories to tell- she created a large extended family that continues to this day.

So no recipe today, just a bit about Grandma.  She was my personal hero.  I miss her every single day.  I hope that I can raise my daughter to be something like her and that I can make my daughter feel from me what I felt from Grandma- fierce, unconditional love and a feeling of being the most important thing/person in the entire world.

If I can give my Baby G. half that feeling, I think I’ll be doing well.

The Trauma of A Poppy Seed Cake

In my grandmother’s recipe box she has pink index cards with recipes written on them.  Some of these have titles like, “Julie’s Fish.”  I actually know the Julie to whom she was referring- she was the wife of a college friend of my grandfather’s.  I promise to write about them someday because it’s an interesting story.  Others have titles like, “Cheese Pastries” and in the top right corner is written, “from Canada.”  What does this mean?  Did she mean all of Canada?  Or someone in Canada that was so obvious she/he didn’t need to be named?  It’s a mystery.

The poppy seed cake I’m going to tell you about is no mystery.  It’s a cake that has been in our family for years but I almost never make it.  Not because it’s bad.  Oh, no. Far from it.  It’s a dense, moist, vanilla-y cake with a nice texture and flavor from the poppy seeds.  Think lemon poppy seed without the lemon flavor (which I often find overpowering).  It’s the kind of cake I dream about when I’m dreaming about cake (and I actually have had dreams about cake.  When I was pregnant I had gestational diabetes which luckily was diet-controlled.  This meant no desserts.  And so, I dreamed about desserts.  It was a sad state of affairs.).  It’s a recipe that was given to my grandmother via my mother’s college roommate’s mother.  Funny thing, my mother and her college roommate have the same first name.  It’s spelled differently because my mother, in a fit of adolescent “I must be my own special snowflake” added a silent “e” to her name.  She still spells it that way today.  Anyway, Mrs. R, the roommate’s mother, gave us the recipe for this cake and this is marked on the back of this recipe card.  So with all this positivity around it, why don’t I make it?

The trauma.

Here’s the real story behind this cake.  We make it once when I was about six or seven.  It was one of the few things my mother would do in the kitchen, make this cake.  It was when we lived in our house, rather than the condo we moved to when I was twelve.  Our across the street neighbor was over, helping.  Mum had put everything into the stand mixer and I was so excited!  I turned to tell our neighbor just how excited I was and that’s when it happened.

My long, blonde hair, which was pulled into a ponytail, got caught in the mixer.

Now, if you’ve never had your hair caught in a mixer (and I really hope you haven’t), well, it is just as bad as it sounds.  It shocks the hell out of you, pulls, makes your neck hurt and in the end, you have to cut your hair out of it.  I mean, think about it- stand mixers can KNEAD bread dough.  They’re strong, tough and powerful.  And the cake?  Ruined.  No one likes hair in their cake.  Perhaps, not surprisingly, the mixer itself was fine.

I was devastated.  Not because my mother had to cut my hair but because we couldn’t have any cake.  See?  I take my desserts really seriously.

Mrs. R’s Poppy Seed Cake (hair-free)

Ingredients:

1 yellow cake mix

1 package instant vanilla pudding

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

1/2 cup white wine (I used Riesling)

4 eggs

1/4 cup poppy seeds

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients together in medium bowl.  For safety’s sake do not use a stand mixer.  Or at least secure hair tightly to head.

Note the absence of a mixer of any kind. Just an old-fashioned spoon.

 

Use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix until it’s all well-blended (no dry parts left).

I did, in fact, break down and use a hand mixer- not a stand mixer!!-- and with some deep, calming yoga-breaths, I was ok.

Pour into a greased bundt pan.

Bake 45 minutes or until top is golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let it cool entirely before trying to get it out of the pan- if you don’t, it will stick and you’ll be sorry.

 

The Best Laid Plans

Yeh, I had such lofty goals for this week.  But not so much did I meet them.  I did make the squash risotto and it was delicious but, alas, I forgot to photograph it.  Possibly because while I was making it I was simultaneously cooking, talking to my daughter, cleaning the kitchen, defrosting said daughter’s dinner and listening to NPR.  So no photo.

And I was totally going to make blintzes tonight so that I could post about them and my Uncle Paul (they’re his favorite thing that his grandmother- Mama- made).  After work, I spent the afternoon picking up my “adopted” brother from the hospital (he’d had day surgery on his foot), taking him and the baby to lunch, helping him get settled and then going to Target to get a few things I needed.  By the time we got home, I was all done.  Plus, the husband called to say that he’s staying late at school so it’s really just me for dinner.  So I had leftovers.  The baby will be having sweet potato (today she’s already had peas, yogurt, cheerios and kashi heart to heart cereal.  She’s a good eater.).

But fear not, I will not deprive you of a recipe.  It just won’t be my own.  Wander over to Lady Gouda and read all about her acorn squash risotto which is similar, though not exactly the same as mine.

And just to leave you with a photo, here’s the cutest baby in the entire world.