Tales from the Kitchen

Oh my, I haven't been here in a long time... sorry! Though, I don't know who I'm apologizing to - I doubt anyone has even bothered to look here in a while! I really want to keep this blog going, because planning meals, shopping and cooking really are an important part of my life. I - usually, admittedly not always - take a joy from the weekly practice and have - pretty much! - gotten in the habit of doing a "big" weekly shopping on Mondays, using our store's "shopping buddy" to keep track of what I'm spending and stay within my proposed budget of feeding a family of four for under $150 a week - and we eat well.

I usually start by looking at the store's weekly sale flyer, seeing what cuts of meat are on sale and what seasonal fruits and vegetables are on a special, then I check to see what staples are on sale. I tend to buy LOTS of paper towels when they are on sale which usually lasts us for months! The same with laundry detergent, dish soap, etc. I stock up on pasta and beans and canned tomatoes, condiments and oil - we use a pretty good amount of extra virgin olive oil so I buy two big bottles when it's on sale. We don't have a big freezer (I look longingly at my brother and sister-in-law's huge side by side freezer...) but I manage to pack in individually wrapped and packaged cuts of meat (chicken breasts, pork chops, tenderloin, ground meat) when it's on the big sale and pay about 1/4 of the standard price. Every week my shopping receipt tells me how much I've saved so far this year and it is well over $400!

Anyway, back to the "eating well" part! Friday was my daughter Emily's 17th birthday, and since we were not going to go spend $300 at the hibachi place as we did last year on her birthday, I told her if we ate at home she could have whatever she wanted, and she chose Marinated Grilled Flank Steak with onions and portabella mushrooms, sauted new potatoes with greek olives and rosemary, green beans with garlic and toasted pine nuts. Good choice! I must admit this is not my photo, above, but one I found on Google with nearly the same menu!

I'm not going to give you exact recipes, but I'll tell you my techniques if you're interested in preparing this really wonderful dish.

Marinated Flank Steak

This marinade was originally made in our family by my mother-in-law Marion Hubbell. We use it all the time, often with less expensive cuts of beef shoulder for London Broil, but it is fantastic for pork tenderloin, chicken breasts, and of course, flank steak. I couldn't tell you the exact amounts, I just do it by eye.

In a low glass or ceramic baking dish, large enough to hold meat, whisk together 1 part extra virgin olive oil, 1 part soy sauce (we use low sodium), 1/2 part lemon juice, and two or three garlic cloves that have been smashed and peeled. I'd guess we use about 1/3 cup oil and soy, and the juice of 1/2 lemon, but make more or less depending on the amount of meat you are using. Add the meat - for a less tender cut you may want to make shallow diagonal cuts on each side. Turn the meat over several times to coat then cover and leave it to marinate anywhere from an hour to a day. If you are cooking within an hour leave it at room tempertature, otherwise refrigerate but take it out of the fridge about an hour before cooking. The meat can then be grilled, broiled, pan seared or roasted until a meat thermometer registers the desired doneness depending on your cut of meat and your taste. (you can find online charts for this)

Bring the remaining marinade to a boil in a small saucepan and add any accumulated juices from the cooked meat, let simmer until reduced. You may want to add a bit of wine or some herbs to this.

New Potatoes with Olives and Rosemary

I don't really remember where this recipe originated in our family, but I've been making it for years and it is a huge favorite! Again, no exact measurements.. just eyeball it!

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cut about 1 lb small new potatoes (red, white or yukon gold) into quarters (halve the tiny ones, eighth the bigger ones) add to pot and boil about 5 minutes or until they are just done. Determine this by taking one out, running it under cold water and tasting it. It should NOT be crisp, but just barely done, not mushy!

Drain the potatoes in a colander. Heat about 2 tablespoons EV olive oil in a large (preferably non stick) skillet. Add two or three smashed and peeled garlic cloves and cook a minute or two, then add potatoes. Cook over medium high heat until they begin to turn a golden brown and get crispy, turn them with a spatula or shake the pan occasionally, but let them sit to get a nice golden brown color. Once they begin to color, season with salt (I use coarse sea salt) and freshly ground black pepper, and about 1 tablespoon dried or fresh rosemary. When they are nearly done add about 1/3 cup halved, pitted calamata olives. Adjust the seasoning to suit your taste - you may want more rosemary. You can turn the heat off at this point and let them sit until you serve. They can be served at room temperature or reheated, and are delicious reheated the next day. They are fabulous with the flank steak and a bit of the marinade sauce on top!

Serve the above with a green salad, &/or blanched green beans with toasted pine nuts - you will love it!

If you try this recipe I would love to hear how it turned out!!

zucchini rice gratin

A couple of nights ago I made this wonderful Zucchini Rice Gratin. It turned out to be more work than I thought - I hadn't read the recipe I saw in Gourmet closely enough, and thought the large "25" was 25 minutes overall - it was 25 minutes cook time - the fine print said 1 1/2 total time! And I hadnt started cooking until 6:30! I don't think it took me much over an hour tho.

You have to cook the rice, roast the vegetables and saute onion and garlic. All of which you can pretty much be doing at the same time, then assemble it like a sort of rice lasagna. It was really, really delish! I had the leftovers for lunch the next day and it was possibly even better. The rice is bound together with an egg and cheese mixture and the combination of rice and egg (might sound icky, but it's not) reminded me so much of the rice cakes my mom used to make as a side dish using leftover rice. I bet she would have loved this dish.

I'm going to try it again with broccoli and other combos - and brown rice for a healthier alternative. I think it could be a good basic simple dinner (with or without meat and salad on the side as I had it - with sliced chicken and a baby green and cherry tomato salad). A little time consuming but not at all hard to do.

Ingredients

       

1/3 cup long-grain white rice
1 1/2 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
6 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 pounds plum tomatoes, sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
1 medium onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, divided

Preparation

       

Preheat oven to 450°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.

Cook rice according to package instructions.

While rice cooks, toss zucchini with 1 tablespoon oil and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a shallow baking pan. Toss tomatoes with 1/2 tablespoon oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt in another baking pan.

Roast zucchini in upper third of oven and tomatoes in lower third, turning vegetables once halfway through roasting, until tender and light golden, about 10 minutes for tomatoes; 20 minutes for zucchini. Leave oven on.

Meanwhile, cook onion and garlic with 1/2 teaspoon salt in 2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy skillet, covered, over low heat, stirring occasionally, until very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

Stir together onion mixture, cooked rice, eggs, thyme, 1/4 cup cheese, 1 tablespoon oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Spread half of rice mixture in a shallow 2-quart baking dish, then top with half of zucchini. Spread remaining rice mixture over zucchini, then top with remaining zucchini. Top with tomatoes and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil, then sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.

Bake in upper third of oven until set and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

 

Not Much Cooking..

This past week was not a great cooking week for me. Monday I made Chicken Fajitas, per Emily's request. Tuesday, more chicken, braised with mushroom from an Everyday Food recipe. It was so so. Wednesday we ate the leftovers of Monday and Tuesday. Thursday I made stuffed peppers. Last night we had take out Chinese.

I've been tired this week. That difficult week of the month (sigh..) plus I've been deeply involved in one project after another. This week would have been a really nice week for someone else to cook for me - because I was hungry! (see point #1!)

Unfortunately, Andrew pulled his back again yesterday (for anyone who hasn't been reading any of my various blogs over the years, my husband has two ruptured discs in his lower spine..). He's going to attempt to make one of his spaghetti dinners tonight anyway (he likes cooking but tends to keep to variations on his favored themes)

The week before, however, I did find out that you can make a pretty decent Curried Squash Soup with a bag of frozen cubed butternut squash, an onion chopped and sauted in olive oil, a container of chicken stock, some curry powder, s&p, a bit of cream and a dollop of low fat sour cream on top. Puree the squash and broth after simmering it and sauted onion and seasonings for about 20 minutes, then add cream and s&p to taste. Good - and easy!

Earlier last week I made the Provincial Beef Stew from the slow cooker book. Really yummy but very thick and a bit heavy. I served it with whole grain pasta and a green salad. It was a really nice taste tho. Try it!

Ah well, next week is another week.. I'll get back on track.

And I hopefully won't have to cook on Thursday - it's my birthday!

Shepherd's Pie

Ok, first of all I must tell you this is not my photo - not my Shepherd's Pie! I swiped it from Martha's site, because yet again I'm having a hard time getting dinner on the table AND taking a nice photo of it! Too bad too because last night's meal was very colorful and pretty.

Last week I made Seared Steak Fajitas (rub a flank steak with lime juice, cumin and s&p - let sit for an hour, then sear in a pan with a bit of olive oil for about 8 min. per side - slice and serve with tortillas and pepper and onion strips, etc). I had half a steak left over so I wrapped it in foil and froze it, then defrosted it yesterday for the pie (my family doesn't like lamb so I use beef anyway). I decided to make it a bit healthier this time so the topping was russet + sweet potatoes - it was a nice change from regular mashed potato. Here is my recipe:

Shepherd's Pie

2 russet potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
apprx. 2 cups leftover steak or other meats, chopped small (or about 1.5 lbs ground meat, browned and drained)
2 tbsp flour
1-2 cups beef broth
apprx. 1 1/2 cups frozen peas and carrots, defrosted
1 tsp dry herbs of your choice (I used italian seasoning)
apprx. 1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce (to taste)
low fat milk
butter
salt & pepper to taste
cinnamon

Peel potatoes and cut into large chunks, cook in boiling salted water until tender, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook chopped onion in olive oil in a large skillet until soft about 5 minutes on low heat. Add chopped steak or cooked drained ground meat, season with s&p and herbs and cook for a few minutes. Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring, for a minute or two over medium high heat. Add broth and simmer until sauce thickens. Add peas and carrots and worcestershire to taste.

When potatoes are done drain and return to pot with enough milk and butter to mash. Mash with hand masher, leaving the potatoes slightly lumpy. Season with s&p and if you want, a touch of cinnamon.

Put meat & veg. mix into a casserole dish (I used a 9" square ceramic dish) and top with potatoes. Cook in preheated 450 degree oven until bubbly and lightly browned on top. Remove from oven and let sit 5 minutes before serving.

I served this with a simple salad of mixed baby greens, orange bell pepper, cucumber and red onion in vinaigrette.

Everyone had seconds!

Lizette asked my yesterday how to print out the recipes on my blog without printing out everything - good question! I think the easiest thing would be to highlight and copy just the recipe, then paste it into a text document on your computer and print. There may be a way I can make text files of them but I haven't figured that out yet!

In other kitchen news - my Dutch Ovens arrived yesterday! Both at once! I have long wanted a Le Creuset Dutch Oven - but they are about $200.. so I haven't ever wanted to part with that much for one pot! Then I saw that Macy's had a sale on the Martha Stewart ones (you can read about this here if you want!) - then I also found a sale on the smaller Le Creuset ones. So now I have a large red, MS one and a small "dune" LC one. Hmm.. all I need is a medium sized one and I'll be all set!

Also, we were up at Border's books yesterday and I took a look in the cookbook section and they had this: The Gourmet Slow Cooker by  Lynn Alley

I've been using some of the recipes from this book, that I found online (the Provincial Chicken Stew is from this book) and I'm so happy to have the whole book now! It is divided up by country with adaptations of classic regional dishes (from curries to moussaka to baked beans) all with fresh ingrediants and wonderful spices, so I'm looking forward to trying them out!

Thank you all who have discovered this blog and left me a comment! I'll try to write in more often, and less long!

This is My Kitchen

This is my kitchen.. It isn't very big. This is about half of it, in a photo from late 2005, and another third from the same year, below. The kitchen hasn't changed much since then. There are new things (prettier and more colorful) on the shelf and window ledge. The knife block and kettle have been replaced with stainless steel ones. The dining room, which you can see beyond, in the picture below is blue now. And I don't even know where those dishtowels are anymore. Currently I have some striped ones hanging up. I love dishtowels. They are an inexpensive (relatively..) and fun way to make a change and add some cheer.

I like my kitchen, but I don't love it. It's cramped and there isn't much counter space. The view out the window is of the driveway, which is ok but not idyllic. I spend way to much time standing at that corner you see there, chopping things on tiny cutting boards, because there isn't much room for a nice big one. I thought of getting a small, freestanding island for the center, but I'm sure we'd just trip on it - we trip on each other already!

I'm not sure size counts for too much when it comes to kitchens, though. My first kitchen was little more than a L shaped counter at the end of an attic living room in my first proper apartment (not counting college days) in what was once the groom's quarters on a horse farm in Westport, CT. I made my first Chicken Cordon Bleu there, my first Raspberry Genoise. Of course my very very first meals - French Toast and Scrambled Eggs - were made in the tiny kitchenette off the maid's room on the upper floor of our NYC apartment, when I was five. I've been cooking a long time I guess!

Anyway, I've been musing about food and cooking a lot recently, and since Carrie Sommers started her Dinner Challenge a week or so ago, my regular blog The Garden of Pink Shadows has become bogged down with recipes, so I thought I'd start this off shoot blog - Tales from the Kitchen - where I can ruminate, reminisce about recipes, cooking, and cooking stuff (like.. pretty dishtowels and things!) So please check bck from time to time and share your kitchen tidbits with me.
 

Slow Cooking - Provincial Chicken Stew

Hooray! It is Saturday! And that means my husband, Andrew, cooked dinner! He made a rather nice spinach fettuccine and chicken thing - damn, I should have taken a picture.. when dinner is finally ready it's hard to remember to run for the camera!

One of the nice things about having two cooks in the family (and sometimes we have three.. occasionally four..) is that the things he's really good at cooking (like thin chicken breast scallops, breaded or not) I suck at.. (mine always come out rubbery :-( So when he cooks it's usually something quite different than what I cook. I'm better at soups, stews, chilies and spicy stuff.

I've been trying every week or two to do a Crock Pot thing. It's hard to find decent crock pot recipes (or "slow cooker" as it seems we are supposed to call them now..), but I've made some pretty good pot roast, brisket (I made some for Passover and my Jewish extended family teased me!) (I'm Protestant/Catholic/Agnostic.. long story..)  and pulled pork amongst other things.

This time I tried a recipe from The Gourmet Slow Cooker by Lynne Alley called Provincial Chicken Stew. There wasn't much to it and I was a bit worried, but one thing about slow cooking.. you can't really make it up as you go along.. you kind of have to commit to a bunch of ingredients and a certain amount of liquid, then wait 5-8 hours and see what you get! Well.. I had my doubts with this in the beginning but it was... ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!!

Here's the recipe as it appears (and their picture because.. no.. I didn't run for the camera.. Above, you can see my Crock Pot in action, and my trusty Nano (she's named Petunia..). I was listening to the very amusing A Spot of Bother while I cooked.

I substituted one large chicken breast cut in two, and two second joints and saved the rest of the chicken for next week. I served this with slices of store bought Polenta, fried in olive oil, and green beans with a bit of garlic salt - other than the chicken a nearly 0 cholesterol meal. But scrumptious!

Enjoy!

(if anyone else has any good crock pot recipes please share them!)

Provincial Chicken Stew

Ingredients

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 chicken, cut into serving pieces and skinned (you can just use breast, on the bone, if you prefer)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, cut into chiffonade, for garnish
1 cup black Nyons or kalamata olives, for garnish (I got the pitted Greek olives from the grocery store salad bar)

   

               

Preparation

Combine the 3/4 cup flour and the salt in a resealable plastic bag. Add the chicken to the bag, several pieces at a time, and shake to coat completely.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the oil. Add the chicken and cook, turning once, for 8 to 10 minutes, until browned on both sides. Using tongs, transfer to paper towels to drain, then arrange in the slow cooker.

Set the sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the onion and the 2 tablespoons flour. Sauté, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Add the garlic and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the wine and stir to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Increase the heat to high and add the tomatoes and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, for 10 to 15 minutes, until some of the tomato liquid evaporates.

Pour the onion mixture over the chicken in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 3 to 8 hours, until the chicken is tender. At 3 to 4 hours, the chicken will still be firm and hold its shape. At 6 to 8 hours, the meat will be falling off the bone. (I did about 4 1/2 hours and it was very tender)

Divide the chicken among dinner plates and garnish with the parsley, basil, and olives. Serve immediately.

This recipe was originally prepared in an oval, 5-quart slow cooker.