I don’t usually do this–just post a blog entry to share someone else’s blog entry. Facebook and Twitter usually do an adequate job with getting the word out. But this is a particularly good and helpful post, and I want to spread it around.
My writer pal Amy Sundberg has some valuable things to say about stoking your creativity by feeding your Muse. Rather than rehash what she has written on the subject, I’ll just direct you right to her words of wisdom.
Enjoy–and get feeding!
my personal stash of mismatchery
Friends who visit my kitchen for the first time are usually surprised when they see my cookware. Most people assume a chef will own a full set of the best, most expensive stuff. But mine looks about as haphazardly assembled as the cookware stash in your local thrift store.
Relish in progress in enameled cast iron
If you’ve read my blog very often–or been in my kitchen–you’ll know I have an affinity for mismatched kitchenware. As this extends to cookware, I own pieces of Lodge, All-Clad, Le Creuset, Chantal, Calphalon, Sur la Table and quite a few of indeterminate origin. As for materials, I have aluminum, stainless steel, carbon steel, tin-lined copper, cast iron–both plain and coated in enamel–and an assortment of metal fusions. Some pieces are cheap, some are moderately priced, and some represent a serious investment.
I love this jumble of cookware. Each piece has a different weight and a different feel in my hands. While I could make oatmeal in just about any vessel, there’s something satisfying about the little one-and-a-half quart stainless steel pot I bought for cheap from a restaurant supply company. If I’m making risotto, osso buco or pot stickers, I gravitate toward the All-Clad pan that’s big enough to take a nap in. There’s just something about it that says, “I’m here to feed all your friends in one go.”
Tackling Dorie Greenspan’s Beggar’s Linguine in the giant All-Clad pan
Beyond personal esthetics, though, I think it’s valuable to learn the properties of different cooking surfaces and how a variety of foods responds to being cooked on those surfaces. Particular materials are best for specific chores. Aluminum is inexpensive and a good conductor of heat, and it does a great job for most things, but cook up a pot of tomato-based sauce in it, and the acid in the tomatoes will turn the pot dark gray or even black. This in turn will render light colored foods some unflattering shades–not good unless you happen to like gray cauliflower. Cornbread baked in anything but cast iron just won’t have the crusty exterior that makes eating it an aural as well as tactile and taste treat.
Cornbread in cast iron…
While I eventually replaced most of the aluminum pots and pans I accumulated during culinary school, I have hung onto the silverstone-coated skillets for cooking eggs and fish, both of which stick to uncoated surfaces. I’ll keep them until I get the seasoning built up on the old cast iron skillets I got from my mother and grandmother.
Cornbread as only cast iron can do it!
The iron skillet my mother used ever since I could remember had a coat of seasoning so absolute that cooking eggs in it was never a problem. Sadly, much later in life she began putting it in the dishwasher and destroyed that amazing finish. I’m working to rebuild it now.
My enamel coated cast iron dutch ovens take forever to heat up, but there’s nothing better in which to braise or stew. As for some of those fancy name brand pieces made of assortments of fused metals, I find it instructive to cook in them and have a good idea of what they can do. Some of them are pretty heavy, so I’ve confined myself to owning smaller pieces from those collections–if they’re too heavy for me to lift when they’re empty (I’m talkin’ ’bout you, Chantal!), I certainly can’t hoist them when they’re full!
Most of us wouldn’t drink hot coffee from a glass or peel an apple with a meat cleaver. So why don’t we give more thought to what we’re cooking our food in? Using the proper cooking surface for the task at hand means you can brown meat handily, cook fish without half of it remaining in the pan and stir up a Mornay sauce that is a warm, creamy color, not dull gray.
Not to put down anyone’s collection of All-Clad or Chantal–I certainly wouldn’t refuse it if someone offered it–but for me there’s something pleasant about cooking in a pot that doesn’t look like it’s part of a uniformed regiment.
Cosmo stepped in as art director
Mismatched is just the way I like it!
My mother’s pressure canner was such a fixture of my childhood that I just had to salvage it from the storage shed on our Tennessee farm. In its time it helped us preserve years’ and years’ worth of gardens and gardens of produce. It dates to the 1950s and is no longer safe for its originally intended purpose, but it is such a magnificent thing that I couldn’t let it go. Now it sits in our California home, waiting for something to do. And this past weekend, we discovered a novel way to press it into service.
steampunk ice bucket!
As Himself and I prepared for a party, we discovered that the old canner made the perfect ice bucket. Most ice buckets are too small to be practical, because someone has to keep refilling them throughout the evening. But this big ol’ steampunk monstrosity needed no refilling, and the pressure gauge on the lid made a good handle. It was an awesome conversation piece as well as a nifty bit of repurposing.
Oh yeah, you can see from those empty bottles that our premixed cocktails vanished pretty quickly. They are a great way to simplify the bar. We made two, one with clear spirits and one with amber, to please more tastes. They were a big hit–in fact, the beer and wine got really lonely that night.
If you want to give this a try, I’d suggest filling a couple of interesting bottles like these and then having refills mixed and at the ready in pitchers. We labeled the bottles with the ingredients as well as the names and had bowls of garnishes to the side, thin orange slices for the Negroni and Luxardo cherries for the Manhattan. This way, guests could help themselves, and no one was tied to bartending.
The Negroni is a particularly easy cocktail to make in quantity, for the measurements are all the same: equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari. It’s a good party cocktail, for it aids in digestion–a welcome thing, what with all that grazing!
today’s CSA delivery
I have a confession to make: I keep letting things go bad in my vegetable bins.
In the fruits and veggies go, all lush and perky, tucked away into those drawers with all the optimism I have each time I open a new CSA box. But then they sit in there, out of sight, out of mind, while I get busy with other things. And a couple of weeks later I take a peek inside, and what do I see? Bewhiskered onion halves. Carrots you can tie into knots. Kale fatigued to unflattering shades of yellow and brown. Radishes from four deliveries ago that look like sunburnt, shrunken heads. Celery that….oh well, you get the idea.
I absolutely hate wasting food. It’s not just a waste of money. To let food go bad so you have to throw it away, in my opinion, is to spit in the face of every hungry person on this planet. And don’t even get me started on how guilty I feel when I have to chuck out a piece of spoiled meat!
Others make this complaint, too, so I know I’m not alone. We all have methods for trying to prevent waste, including immediately wrapping greens and herbs in moist paper towels to keep them in good shape, and putting fresh fruit in a bowl on the kitchen counter so we’ll notice it when we’re on the way for a cookie. But still I manage to forget what I’ve squirreled away in the bottom of the fridge.
So here’s my new bid to try and stop the waste.
I’m going to take the packing list that’s always in the top of the CSA box and map out how I’ll use each item in the coming week (two weeks for root vegetables), pulling recipes and noting both what I’ll make and when we’ll have it. And I’ll check the calendar as I do this. If it looks like a busy week, I’ll find recipes for things that freeze well.
If I have an abundance of items that will make a great vegetable stock, then I’ll make and freeze some stock–I’m roasting mirepoix even as I write this, and I just snipped some fresh thyme and a bay leaf from the backyard.
Beets are hearty and can last a long time. Usually I’ll roast them whole and serve them sliced over a green salad with goat cheese and toasted walnuts. But in a couple of days I’ll make borscht instead, because it’s definitely hearty soup season. The greens are attached, so those will go into a braise with kale and garbanzo beans on Sunday afternoon. I’ll trim the greens off the carrots this afternoon and feed them to the peckish red worms in my compost box. At this point, those worms are just well-fed pets, but that’s a subject for another blog entry, maybe in the spring…
planning out the week’s meals
Usually I toss the packing list into the trash as soon as I’ve pulled everything out of the box. But I’m going to start keeping those lists in a file folder, so I can go back and review my progress and see which dishes we liked enough to repeat. I’ll make notes on the backs of these sheets as I go, so I know what works for us and what doesn’t.
Admittedly, I’m not the best at following through with my resolutions. But next year if I throw out half of what I threw out this year, then that’s progress, right?
I’d like to think so.
Borscht
Borscht is one of those soups that are open to dozens of interpretations. Some include meat and an array of vegetables, so that it seems more like a veggie-beef soup than anything else. To me, borscht is about the beets and the balance of sweet, sour and salt. I like this recipe because it’s simple, very “beet forward” and good either hot or cold. Roast the beets whole and unpeeled, and you get a deep, rich flavor. Dice or grate them (wear red or black while you’re doing this!) and simmer them, and you’ll get a lighter flavor that’s especially refreshing in a cold summer soup. My version is a take on Mimi Sheraton’s cold borscht recipe from From My Mother’s Kitchen.
This recipe makes 4-6 servings.
3 or 4 medium-sized beets
5 cups of water
juice of 1 to 1 1/2 lemons
4 egg yolks
salt, sugar and white pepper to taste
sour cream & fresh dill for garnish (other garnishes can include cooked tiny whole potatoes)
Wash and peel the beets, then cut into small dice or coarsely grate. Combine in a large pot with water, the juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until tender, about 35-40 minutes. Add the juice of another half a lemon, stir well, and remove from the heat.
Beat egg yolks in a medium bowl with a whisk or fork. Slowly ladle in some of the beet liquid, whisking constantly, to gradually bring up the temperature of the yolks without cooking them. After you’ve whisked in about four ladles, pour the mixture very slowly back into the pot, whisking constantly to blend. (You won’t really taste the eggs in the finished product–they’re more about producing a rich, velvety texture.)
Now–here’s the fun part–pour the pot of soup into a large bowl or pitcher; then pour it back into the pot. Pour it back and forth between the pot and the bowl or pitcher about 10 to 15 times. About halfway through, stop and taste the borscht. Season with salt and white pepper, and adjust the flavor with more lemon juice and a bit of sugar if you want. Then finish the back-and-forth pour. All of this pouring will give the borscht a smooth, creamy texture.
At this point you can either chill it thoroughly and serve it cold or heat it a bit–just don’t recook it. Whether you’re serving it hot or cold, garnish with a dollop of sour cream and a snipping of fresh dill.
(You can make this with canned beets, but it won’t have the full flavor you get from fresh beets. You can also whisk in two large, whole eggs, rather than just yolks, but if you do, be sure your whisking arm is up for the challenge. Unless you’re dedicated to a vigorous whisking session, the result will be a funky looking crimson egg-drop soup!)
Christmas Fruit Salad: two ingredients, no fuss!
It seems like I go into so many things tush-first.
I didn’t set out to devise a Christmas dish yesterday, but it happened. My lunch included a fruit salad made of only two ingredients, kiwi and pomegranate, because that’s what I had on hand, courtesy of the most recent CSA delivery. It was not my intention to go all rah-rah-holiday with it, but after I tossed the two fruits into a bowl together, I realized that there was some serious Christmas potential in front of me.
If you want to make this salad, you need only these two ingredients, in whatever amount and proportion you desire. It really doesn’t need anything else. It’s an easy do-ahead and a fresh, welcome contrast to all those rich, wintery dishes.
This salad is for my cousin, Deb, who is a brilliant litigator, scholar and equestrienne, but who once cooked a holiday ham with the wrapper on. So she doesn’t take a hammer to the pomegranate and make her brother’s kitchen look like a scene in a third-rate horror flick come dinnertime on Christmas Day. So no one does this in anyone’s kitchen, here’s the fast, easy and tidy way to get the seeds out of a pomegranate.
If you’re not too well acquainted with kiwi, just remember that if it’s rock-solid, it will be sour. It needs a little pliability, a soft give when you lightly squeeze it. Peel it with a vegetable peeler instead of a knife, so you take away only the skin.
Here’s yesterday’s lunch fruit salad. I like this photo much better. The kiwis are a little soft and smoodgy, but they’re sweeter at this stage.
the prototype, the inspiration…
Pretty.
Yummy.
In-season.
It’s a keeper!
