We were driving out the gate last Sunday just at moonrise – couldn’t resist snapping a picture or two.
The first food picture you see is the kale gratin from last week’s post. The kale was very tender, but the taste couldn’t compete with the Italian sausage and goat cheese. I think I’ll try this again – once without the sausage and once without the goat cheese, in each case making the sauce lighter by omitting the butter and just shaking up the flour with the milk. Kale is wonderful stuff, especially in soups. Anyway, that was Saturday.
We started this week with Sunday dinner at Gerry’s. Hubby grilled the lamb chops, rubbed with olive oil, salt, pepper and a sprinkling Herbs de Provence. I made Panzanella, a delicious bread-and-tomato salad, from a Kitchen Parade recipe. It’s really not Panzanella season, but I did have those heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joe’s, so …
Tom showed up with a layered ratatouille in the manner of Julia Child, and it was delicious as well as pleasing to the eye. For pudding, Gerry made tiny tarts filled with mincemeat or lemon curd, using C4C to make the gluten-free crust. If you haven’t yet met Thomas Keller’s C4C gluten-free flour, check it out here. It is now one of my kitchen staples – beats Pamela’s mixes any day. Gerry’s still struggling with rolling out the C4C piecrust, but we’re working on it.
Monday will find us with a pot of beans and ham, limas in this case. I have a ham bone for the pot, and the beans are currently softening. I generally use the boil-5-minutes-rest-an-hour method, with a generous dollop of Kosher salt in the soaking water. The beans absorb the salt, and little seasoning is required after the beans are rinsed and cooked with fresh water or stock.
I like to add finely chopped onions, carrots, and celery, softening them first in a little olive oil. Today I have a superabundance of duck stock, so I will likely dump some of that in the pot in place of water. I like to bring the pot to a simmer and then put it, covered, in a 225 degree oven. The beans cook at a slow, even simmer. I credit Cooks Illustrated (March-April 2008 issue) with the soaking and cooking methods – great magazine. America’s Test Kitchen – thank you for all I am learning.
Today I will also make the meatballs for Poblano Albondigas, which we will enjoy later in the week. And I’ll make the marinade and rub the racks of ribs for tomorrow night. Or maybe I won’t do that until tomorrow!
Tuesday
Today marks our first adventure into the Stinking Rose Restaurant Cookbook – baby back ribs! Garlic in the marinade and roasted garlic in the barbeque sauce - whoowee.
The ribs went into the marinade this morning and into the 275˚ F oven this afternoon. Latterly the kitchen smelled of garlic (of course) and of the vinegar in the barbeque sauce. Heavenly.
This morning I baked a butternut squash and pureed it with a bit of milk, butter, and cumin. It’s a beautiful orange, and contrasts with the green rice, an old favorite Frugal Gourmet (yes, the disgraced pedophile minister guy) recipe. I’ve given all his books away, but found a recipe on the internet that purports to be his. Lots of parsley (a wonderful bunch that I bought last Friday at the market that has been decorating our kitchen counter in a mug of water), spinach, and scallions are what make it “green”. It is served topped with grated parmesan.
The ribs finished with 15 minutes at 500˚ F, emerging brown and crispy. They were good, I must say, with the tangy barbeque sauce and crunchy crust, although my favorite rib recipe is still this one at epicurious.com.
Wednesday - Today is a day off!
I get a day off when either: a) I succumb to the pizza gods and order in; or b) Hubby cooks. Tonight he’s cooking – crab cakes. This is one of his many specialties. He makes his own Bay Seasoning, and prefers baking the cakes to frying them. This time he’s using a recipe from a recent Bon Appetít. You can find it here at epicurious.com. We’re finishing off the final few leaves from our glorious bunch of parsley. The stems go into the compost bin.
I am cooking a few green beans to go along with – I bought ready-to-cook organic beans so all I have to do is blanch them and finish them.
The berry vendors are back. I passed them this afternoon as they were setting up on the corner. Well, actually, I didn’t pass them – I stopped and bought half a flat (6 “pints”). These are huge, beautiful, succulent strawberries. Our morning fruit bowl is going to be excellent tomorrow – strawberries, blackberries, oranges, clementines, and, for Adam, the last Kiwi fruit until Friday’s market.
Thursday
I’m in using-up mode. There are some bits of things in my refrigerator that cry out to be used, among them the last bit of gourmet plum sauce. This calls for pork chops, and I have a hunk of pork loin in the freezer that will be perfect.
This I will cut into thick chops, and then I will brine the chops for an hour or two in a 16:1 water-to-kosher salt mixture with just a bit of raw sugar added. These chops are moist and tasty; never dry, thanks to the brine. Hubby will rub them with oil, salt and pepper, and cook them over direct heat on the grill.
For those of you who haven’t been here, we are on our second natural gas grill since we moved to this house in 2001. This one has five burners running-back-to-front, an ideal configuration for grilling indirect; a smoker box at one end; a rotisserie which we rarely use; an infra-red burner intended for the rotisserie but which is ideal for crisping duck skin when we do butt-chicken-style duck. Come see us – we’ll cook for you!
To accompany, I have the red chard from Friday’s market. The thin slices of tender stems I will add to shallots softened in butter, and braise for about 10 minutes with a little stock. Then we add the leaves, cut into ribbons, and cook until wilted. Finally we finish the dish with a few raisins and toasted pine nuts. (The raisins and pine nuts come from our market fruit purveyor – delicious.)
Friday
Today is another easy day. I unearthed a container of Bolognese sauce in the big freezer, and with the spinach-and-cheese ravioli I scored at Trader Joe’s, we’ve got dinner! And it’s really easy because Hubby is the pasta cook. All I have to do is warm the sauce, put together the cheese grater, and set the table. Hurray!
This morning we went to the local farmer’s market. The fruit guys had Cara Cara oranges, my absolute favorite orange. And of course they had kiwi fruit, grapefruit, and Satsuma tangerines, too. I scored some purple potatoes, a discounted pint of grape tomatoes, a beautiful head of cauliflower, a lump of ginger, some zucchini, shallots, and a bag of baby spinach, among other things like limes and eggplant from Charles Drew, and a couple of red onions from Moessner Farms.
The big hit of the day, however, was this: persimmon chips. The fruit guys, having a lot of soft, ripe fuyu persimmons, had sliced them up and put them in the dehydrator. They beat fruit leather all hollow! I bought a little bag and wandered around the market, offering anyone I knew a taste. They were so good, I went back to buy more.
Saturday
A recipe in my daily email from Fine Cooking magazine (and thanks, Deanna, for the subscription!) caught my eye – Korean Bibimbap with Sesame Chicken. It’s made with leftover cooked chicken. And it sounds delicious. This is just the recipe for christening my new wok (more on that later).
So tonight I’m taking it easy once again, while Hubby grills a chicken beer-can style. We’ve come a long way with butt chicken since we first came across it in Steve Raichlen’s Barbecue! Bible. By the way, if you don’t own this cookbook, run right away to the computer and order it – you can get it used from sites like abebooks.com.
Some number of years ago, our first beer can chicken wobbled on the grill grate, precariously balanced on a half-full can of beer and the ends of the drumsticks. We liked the result so well that we bought a pair of rudimentary stainless steel “beer cans”, basically a heavy receptacle on an octagonal base. These we used for several years. Then our friend Janice, who finds the absolute best gadgets, bought an updated version, like the one on the left in the picture.
We were so impressed, we opted for new beer cans – one like Janice’s and an updated Steve Raichlen version – the one on the right. The best thing is that these catch most of the drippings, so there’s less mess on the grill and lovely jus to add to the stock, after the fat is removed.
So the Poblano Albondigas soup gets pushed into next week. But the meatballs are already made, waiting in the freezer.
