Here are some ingredient notes: If you’ve never had quinoa, it is an experience I highly recommend! In addition to being tasty (something like ever-so-slightly bitter couscous) it’s also obscenely nutritious. Tamari is a gift from god. Carménère is one of my favorite kinds of wine, and the particular label I used (Chono) is Chilean and I think the grapes are grown organically, since they serve it at Yield. The flavor notes include “roasted red peppers,” “dark chocolate,” and “leather.” So… heh. I got it for $14.99 at a nearby “under $15 per bottle” store. :q

There are obviously many variations you can make on this recipe. For example, you could use a wine other than carménère; my opinion on the “cooking wine” issue is that you should use a good wine but hey, you only need a cup and you can drink the rest! Couscous would be a worthy (yet somewhat less nutritious) substitute for the quinoa. If you can’t find nori, but have fresh sage in spades, then you can replace the nori with sage leaves fried in olive oil or browned butter (not as vegan). Finally, ignoring the vegan theme, this would be an excellent side for a roast chicken. PS I totally made the whole thing up, so if you think it’s missing something, please let me know (also, please come up with a shorter name).

[This is a fairly "easy" vegan recipe because the ingredients are widely available. It doesn't have agave syrup or arrowroot or seitan or "nutritional yeast flakes" (shudder).]

Quinoa with mushrooms, nori, pinenuts, and a carménère-tamari reduction

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups water
• olive oil
• 1 shallot, finely minced
• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped mushrooms (I used some mix of gourmet kinds from Green Giant)
• 2 sheets nori (toasted), crumbled
• 1/2 cup pinenuts (not toasted)
• 1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce, plus extra to taste
• 1/2 tablespoon white rice vinegar
• 1 cup carménère (or other spicy red wine)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• salt and pepper

1. Prepare the quinoa: It’s basically prepared the same way rice is prepared. You put 1 part quinoa 2 parts water into a pot, then bring it to a boil, cover it, and bring the heat down to “negligible.” Do this *while* you make the stuff that goes into it (as opposed to right before or after).

2. Sauté the shallot on medium in olive oil until translucent, then add the mushrooms, a dash of tamari, and half the crumbled nori. Sauté until the mushrooms have rendered all their liquid, then bring the heat up to medium-high to burn off said liquid and (ideally) char the shallots a little. Remove to a bowl and cover with a paper towel.

3. Wipe the saucepan from the previous step dry, but leave any traces of shallot or nori that got singed to the pan if you can (we want them in the sauce). Toast the pine nuts briefly on high heat until they’re fragrant and they’ve rendered some of their oils. Remove to a bowl.

4. Reduce heat to medium, and immediately deglaze the still-hot pan with the wine. Reduce the wine by a little less than a half, then add the rice vinegar, tamari, and brown sugar. Reduce slightly, until flavors have combined. Reduce heat to low, add the thyme, then taste and adjust for sugar, tamari, salt, and pepper.

5. Mix the mushrooms and pinenut mixtures into the quinoa (now done and hopefully still quite hot). Serve drizzled with the wine-tamari sauce and garnish with remaining nori.

I served this up with Henry/Rachel Ray’s famous roast broccoli (which came out mostly wrong because I did it wrong), and Smitten Kitchen’s strawberry-rhubarb crumble. As for the latter, I totally skipped over “butter” the first time I read the ingredients, so I ended up substituting vegetable shortening, which is less good.* Definitely a winner, though, so I’m looking forward to making it again. :v

The reason dinner was something of a failure was that I totally forgot that Ryan doesn’t really eat at all. XD So I ate most of it myself, though he sampled everything and approved. Also, he took a tylenol and could only have a touch of wine, so I ended up drinking nearly the entire bottle myself, but hey… it helped me sleep!

* By the way, Crisco has trans fats in it as does anything with “partially hydrogenated” whatever-the-fuck. They can say it contains zero grams, so long as it has less than one gram. Thanks FDA and food industry lobbyists!

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2008/11/the_best_brocco.html

You basically just mix up broccoli, garlic, pinenuts (optional), salt and pepper and roast in the oven, and then squeeze lemon juice over it all.  Somehow the combination of the caramelization and the citrus is insanely delicious.  Try it even if you don’t like broccoli — it will change your mind!

You can find a pretty good transcript of the recipe here (but not quite complete, annoyingly), if you don’t have the cookbook. Note that you will also need her instructions on sauteing mushrooms (this one is a direct, complete copy) and brown-braising pearl onions (close enough), even if you think you know how to do these things.

Some notes:

• One of the best things about the original recipe is the detailed information on wine. It recommends pairing with “a fairly full-bodied, young red wine, such as Beaujolais, Côtes du Rhône, Bordeaux-St. Émilion, or Burgundy,” and using any of those or a Chianti to go into the stew.
• 3 cups of wine = 1 bottle. I doubled the recipe. Whoo!
• I bought pre-cut-up stew meat, some of which was cut a lot finer than the other, and on the whole big chunks worked a lot better for drying and browning.
• Conversely, I couldn’t find an unsliced chunk of bacon anywhere, and regular old thick-sliced seemed to work okay.
• I over-salted because I forgot, as always, to account for the massive amounts of salt in bouillon cubes. Use caution, or perhaps better beef stock.
• Blanching helps when you realize you have to peel 48 pearl onions.
• I couldn’t really get the sauce to thicken in the end, but it seemed to end up okay just letting it reduce a lot even if it never really reached light-spoon-coating consistency. =/

For extras, here is the rosemary bread recipe I have been fussing with of late. It’s sort of long but that’s because the procedure is the complicated part; sorry. Start this ~3 hrs before you want to eat it.

• 2 1/2 tsp yeast, which is~1 packet
• 2 c. warm water, ~110-115 F, which is warm but just shy of scalding
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 c. flour. Bread flour is nice if you can get it, and if you do not consider extra gluten cheating.
• 2 tsp. minced fresh rosemary plus more for topping. Fresh is important! You can sub out some for fresh thyme.
• olive oil, corn meal, sea salt

Dissolve yeast in the warm water and sugar. If it’s NOT instant/fast-acting/bread-machine yeast, give it <5 min to froth up. Otherwise, immediately add flour, salt, and 2 tsp rosemary and stir until blended. Do not knead! Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until double in size; bonus points for putting it someplace slightly warm and moist.

Oil a baking sheet and sprinkle with corn meal. Perhaps try oiling your hands instead of flouring them, as the dough is super sticky, then divide it in half, shape each half quickly and loosely into a round by tucking the edges under, and place on the baking sheet. Cover and let rise another hour. The stickiness is again a problem; cooking-sprayed plastic wrap is the only thing I’ve managed to use that DIDN’T stick horribly and make the top of my loaves lumpy.

With bread, some last-minute rising happens in the oven and for that you want things hot and steamy (har). Start heating your oven early, maybe half an hour into the second rise, to 450 or “lots.” My oven here has no numbers on the dial between 350 and 500 so I use my imagination, but I don’t think getting it too hot is a possibility. If you have a pizza stone, put it in now. Also put a cast-iron skillet in the bottom of the oven (or something else which can be raised to high temps empty, then have cool water thrown in it without exploding).

When bread is again about doubled in size, brush with olive oil and top with more rosemary and plentiful crushed sea salt. Get yourself some water, maybe 1/4 cup, on hand near your oven as now you must act quickly! Put the bread in (just stick the pan on the pizza stone if using one, unless you want to get fancy and try to slide the bread onto the stone directly), dump the water on your previously-heated skillet or whatever where it will send up exciting clouds of steam, and close the oven door quickly. Bake 10 min, adding more water for steam if it runs out. Then turn the oven down to 375 and bake another 20 min or so until it’s golden-browny.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes (yukon golds are best)
• Whipping cream
• Butter
• salt to taste
• 1-2 bulbs of garlic
• olive oil

Gloria will tell you that I am a measure-twice-cut-once kind of cook. I am very careful with quantities, and I don’t improvise very well. This is the one exception, so I’ll go over quantity pretty carefully.

HOW MANY POTATOES?
It’s hard sometimes to gauge how many potatoes you need. You really need to judge what the rest of the meal is like and how fat your diners are.

They are all different sizes! Fuck you!

I usually go for around half a pound of potatoes per person, if you have time to measure. If you don’t, about four people is four potatoes that you’d chuck to ward off a medium-persistent robber.

Step 1. Roast some garlic. I think we’ve gone over this in an earlier post, so here is an MS Paint synopsis:

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUU--

Step 2. Boil potatoes. I usually cut the potatoes into 2″x2″x1″ cubes, but it’s not an exact science. Gloria likes it when I leave the skins on, so I am lazy and leave the skins on. Boil them until they cut like butter with a fork.

Step 3. When your potatoes are soft enough, drain them really well, then put them in a mixing bowl. Drop 1/2 a stick of butter in there for around 4 potatoes. (Actually, regardless of how many potatoes I use, there’s usually a 1/2 stick of butter in it.)

Step 4. While the butter is melting, retrieve your roasted garlic and pop the soft cloves out of their pods. Put them into the mixing bowl with everything else.

Step 5. Take an egg beater to your potatoes, low speed. While the eggbeater is going, pour some whipping cream in. Usually I use anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup, but it really depends on the texture you want. We used 1/4 cup for about 3.5 pounds of potatoes last week, and it made a smooth, dense mashed potato.

Step 6. Season. You want to use some salt, definitely, but it’s at your discretion. I love throwing some pepper into mine, and maybe some Lawry’s seasoned salt. But if you’ve got only one bulb of garlic in there, less intense flavors are necessary. Remember, the base is creamy and buttery.

It does.

Sole à la meunière (Translation: Fancy-ass fish sticks.)

• 1 lb Dover sole filets*
• salt, pepper, flour, milk
• 1 stick of butter
• 3-4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped fine

Season the sole filets with salt and pepper on both sides, then dip them in milk and dredge them in flour until lightly coated. Heat 4-5 tbsp of butter in a skillet on medium until melted and foaming, then fry the sole filets, turning once until browned on both sides. Remove the sole to a serving platter (cover it with a paper towel if desired), and remove the skillet from heat. In a fresh saucepan, melt the remaining butter and let it brown slowly on medium-low heat (it will turn a brown color and smell nutty). Carefully pour the hot butter into the fishy skillet, stir it to let the butter absorb the fishiness, then pour the resulting butter mixture over the fish. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve immediately.

* So apparently you have to be very careful when buying sole, because there are two species of fish named Dover sole, and one of them (the one I expect is more commonly available in American supermarkets) is not truly sole. They are both flat fish, but real Dover sole has a very delicate flaky texture and an unmistakable subtle taste which the other kind lacks completely.

The fishing industry is really sketchy with naming, by the way (another example is how basa swai can’t be labeled “giant catfish” even though that’s what it is, because the catfish lobby is just that powerful). I guess they figure that one white, flat fish looks the same as all the others!

Marmalade chicken

• 4 breasts chicken, butterflied and (optionally) pounded thin with a meat tenderizer
• salt, pepper
• olive oil
• marsala or sherry, for deglazing
• 2 tbsp butter (optional)
• 1 tbsp dried rubbed sage
• 1/4 of a white onion, minced
• 1 c chicken broth
• 1 1/2 c marmalade*

Pat the chicken breasts dry, season with salt and pepper, and brown in a skillet with some olive oil until just about done through. Remove the chicken and deglaze the pan with some sherry, turning the heat down to medium. Add the butter (opt.), sage, onion, broth, and marmalade, and let the sauce reduce for about 20 minutes. Add more broth and marmalade if it isn’t voluminous enough for you. Finally, replace the chicken in the pan, coat it with the sauce, and let it cook, covered, for an additional 10 minutes on low heat.

Variation: Use 2 duck breasts instead. Score the fatty side of the breast, sear it on both sides 5 min each, then keep warm in a 200˚F oven. Make the sauce using the rendered duck fat and no butter (unless you feel like it). Skip the last step and instead reduce 5 minutes more. Slice the breasts against the grain and pour the reduction over top to serve. This seems like a very good idea to me.

* We used Safeway’s Seville orange marmalade, which is a tad on the bitter side, but pleasantly so. Use your discretion: I believe in you!

• 5 large potatoes, cubed (skinned optional)
• olive oil
• buttermilk
• salt and pepper

Put potato cubes in a pot of warm water, bring to a boil, and then let simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Drain, add olive oil and buttermilk, and mash. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Wilted spinach with garlic

• 4 large cloves garlic, sliced into thin slivers
• 1 lb fresh spinach
• olive oil

Heat olive oil and a little bit of salt in a small skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add the spinach and cook about 10 minutes, stirring with a spatula so it cooks evenly.

I don’t have my mom’s recipe so the following is adapted from a few sources, notably Smitten Kitchen’s version.

Tortilla de patata (Potato omelet)

• 1 cup olive oil (don’t worry, you won’t actually consume the whole cup)
• 3 medium potatoes, sliced very thin (I never skin potatoes if I can help it, but you can I guess)
• 1 large white onion, quartered and sliced thin
• 6 eggs
• kosher salt

Heat the cup of oil in a large skillet (preferably with fairly high sides– remember that all the potatoes, onions, and egg need to fit!) on medium-high until very hot (about 3 minutes, when it starts to shimmer and little bubbles appear on the surface of the pan). Bring the heat down to medium-low and add the sliced potatoes, stirring occasionally to make sure that none stick to the pan. Cook this about 6-8 minutes, then add the onions and cook an additional 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender to the bite. Drain the potatoes and onions in a colander over a bowl; reserve oil. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and a few pinches of salt (say about 1-2 teaspoons, depending on your Daily Salt Requirements) until just scrambled, and then fold in the drained potatoes and onions slowly. While folding them in, you can chop up the potatoes a bit more (into half-circles or whatever) with a fork or wooden spatula, but it doesn’t matter too much! Let that all sit for 10 minutes.

Now heat about 4-5 tbsp of the reserved oil in a nonstick pan on med-high (I used a wok! since it’s what we had around) until smoking, pour the egg-and-potato mixture and pat it down so that it is relatively flat. Reduce heat to med-low. Run a spatula around the bottom so that a layer of egg creeps in under the potatoes and cook that for 6-8 minutes, shaking occasionally to keep the omelet from sticking to the pan too much. Eventually the top should begin to set: it should no longer be liquid, though still somewhat wet and runny. Now for the fun part: we have to invert the tortilla: (1) Equip oven mitts, (2) Get yerself a large plate, (3) Place the plate over the pan, (4) Turn it all upside down, carefully.

Refresh the pan with fresh oil if it looks dry, then slide the tortilla back in. Run a spatula around the tortilla and cook another 4-6 minutes or until a toothpick stuck through the middle runs clear, making sure to shake the pan every now and again. Serve warm or cold: either works!

A good accompaniment is some fairly standard garlic chicken (pictured above). Heat some olive oil to smoking on medium high, add garlic until it is fragrant and beginning to brown, and then some salted chunks of chicken. Cook all that until the chicken is done through, then add some sherry and toss the chicken to coat in the resulting deliciousness.

Chicken lettuce wraps are one of those dishes which I can never remember the origin of – are they really anywhere close to “authentic” asian food, or is PF Chang’s overpriced asian fusion menu responsible for them? A quick Google search yielded no concrete answers, though searching my memory did dredge up something – I think I had these in Taiwan once.  Well, regardless of whether or not this is an American invention, this dish is damn tasty and makes for a good meal that’s not altogether that bad for you.  Extra bonus: it’s low carb!

The one negative to this dish is that it takes a lot of mincing.  However, it’s worth it in the end! Just put your favorite show on the TV or convince someone to be your kitchen grunt, and get chopping.

As usual, measurements are just guidelines that I basically made up – in actuality I just mixed up whatever seemed right. I hope the measurements give you an idea of proportion, however. This recipe was sorta cobbled together from the first three recipes I found through Google. I’ll include a list of sample recipes at the end so you can get an idea of what other variations there are.

Ingredients (Yields about 6 servings):

• 2 lbs ground chicken (you can also use turkey for a similar taste/texture)
• 1 head of lettuce (I used iceberg, but other popular choices are butter lettuce and romaine)
• 3 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 tbsp minced fresh ginger
• 3 scallions, chopped finely
• 1 can water chesnuts, chopped finely
• 2 cups fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped finely
• 1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, chopped roughly
• dry sherry
• sesame oil
• oyster sauce
• hoisin sauce
• soy sauce
• black pepper and salt

Start by marinating the ground chicken in about 1/2 cup of dry sherry and 1/4 cup soy sauce.  Salt and pepper as well – I was very liberal with the pepper, not as much with the salt.

Begin chopping up everything while the meat marinates. After you’re done, put a little veggie or canola oil in a skillet or wok, and start cooking the meat while breaking it up into little pieces.  This actually requires a good deal of effort… my arms were getting tired after a few minutes! When the chicken is cooked thoroughly, remove it from the heat and put it in a bowl for later.

In a small bowl, mix about 1/2 cup hoisin sauce, 1/3 cup oyster sauce, 1/4 cup sesame oil, and a little sherry and soy sauce.

Saute all the chopped things together, then add in the chicken when things are mostly all cooked. Pour the mixture in the small bowl in, and stir until well incorporated.

You’re done! Serve with leaves of the lettuce.   It makes a decent meal by itself, or with a side of veggies since the lettuce doesn’t provide as much nutritional value.

Some common additions to this dish are hot pepper flakes, fresh peppers, red pepper, and orange zest. Here are some links to alternative recipes:

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps (from Stretch Mark Mama)

Chicken Lettuce Wraps Two Ways (from YumSugar)

Thai Glazed Chicken Lettuce Wraps (from Rachael Ray)

• 8oz thin spaghetti noodles
• 3 tbsp peanut oil
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 1/2 tbsp peanut butter
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp sesame seeds
• 2-3 fresh cloves garlic, chopped
• red cayenne pepper
• 2-3 scallions, chopped (optional)

I’m not a big scallion fan, so I left those out.

1. Cook noodles and toss with 1 tbsp peanut oil.
2. In a bowl with high sides, mix together the soy sauce, red wine vinegar, peanut butter, sesame oil, sugar, ground ginger, and salt. Beat with a fork or whisk until creamy.
3. In a large skillet, roast the sesame seeds (dry) until they are golden brown and fragrant. Let them cool on a small plate. Then use the same skillet to roast the chopped garlic in the 2 tbsp peanut oil, along with red cayenne pepper to taste.
4. When the garlic is roasted, add the noodles and sauce to the skillet. Mix and cook over low heat for 2 minutes or until sauce has started to thicken around noodles. Remove from heat and mix in sesame seeds and scallions.

This is probably obvious to anyone but me, but after you cook the sesame seeds they are hot. I tried to spread them around on the plate and burned my fingers. Whoops.

It’s good warm or cold, so make lots and have leftovers. (The pictures are actually of a double recipe, because a package of spaghetti is usually 16 oz., not 8 oz., and it seemed silly to only cook half of it.)

rosemary bread yet again

First I baked rosemary bread yet again, for a dinner party, following this recipe for an unkneaded peasant bread. This time it came out much much lighter, fluffier, and more delicious. Basically I followed the directions more carefully and this worked (who knew!) although I also stuck my roommate’s pizza stone in the oven while it was preheating, then stuck the bread pan right on top of it to while baking, which may have helped.

I infused some olive oil with garlic and left-over fresh rosemary while it was baking, too, for dipping purposes. This was a good idea.

mm breakfast!

Hungry grad students ate all my bread at once, so the next day I made scones, using my current favorite recipe (via Smitten Kitchen, with modifications here), only lemon-zest-and-cranberry this time (I had no oranges). A nice thing I’d forgotten about this recipe is it involves no eggs, except for the glaze, so licking the spoon is completely acceptable.

Finally, I made tomatoes filled with rice again (for the third time!) and yet again, they were devoured before photographic evidence could be acquired. You’ll just have to trust me on them.

Here's the bread rising, looking bizarre