advice

Tender at the home

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The Kid has been living here at the house for the past few months, until a suitable abode could be procured which didn’t necessitate a roommate (it’s an only child thing).A cute little place, not far from us has been found, and our little occupant is in the process of moving in.  And while The Kid will come home for family dinners from time to time, this week is really the last week in which we will sit down for regular suppers.

So, when I was figuring out what nights The Kid would be home from work at supper time, and what I would make, my child had a meal request.

My buttermilk chicken tenders.It’s a family favorite: strips of very juicy white meat, with the tang of buttermilk, and a seriously crispy coating.  But juicy and crispy from one piece of chicken can be extremely problematic.  So, what to do?  And how to do it?

My answer was science.

I was looking for a coating that was insanely crispy, thin and delicate.  I desired golden, salty fairy wings.

Fat-free buttermilk would give me flavor.  It’s viscous enough to cling so that I wouldn’t need any eggs.  Plus, and most importantly, it’s chock full of acid.  Which I needed for the other part of my dredge.

chic tenders

Number two was self-rising flour.  This is flour fortified with salt and baking powder.  Double-acting baking powder has, like the name implies, two opportunities to rise.  One is at room temperature, when it comes into contact with acid.  The second is in the presence of heat.  It can impart a salty, bitter flavor, but the buttermilk tang, salt, and pepper will entirely negate that.

For 1 ½ pounds of tenders, I use about 2 cups of fat-free buttermilk, seasoned, and poured into a shallow dish large enough to easily fit the chicken.  I use three or four cups of self-rising, also seasoned.  It may seem like a lot of flour, but I promise you don’t want to run out halfway through cooking, and be stuck scrambling with nothing left but those weird lumps made when buttermilk drips into the flour.  The breading system is three-stage; flour, then buttermilk, and then back once more into the flour before finally frying.

I also highly recommend using gloves.  And a second person, to actually fry each piece while you’re coating, makes the whole ordeal almost simple.

The procedure is also pretty specific.  Unlike the way I usually like to cook, the tenders cannot be done in advance.  To get that ultra-crispiness you have to bread the chicken immediately before frying.  Otherwise that first, acid-based rise will disipate and you won’t get the full ethereal crust.

And the frying portion of the program is kinda picky, too.I cook the chicky in my 10-inch cast iron pan.  I pour in vegetable oil about 1/3 of the way up the side and heat it to 350 degrees.  When placed in the pan (don’t crowd them—no more than four at a time), the oil should not be deep enough to cover them.  When the bottom is golden flip and cook the other side.  If you oil temperature stays near 350, by the time the tenders are golden all over, the chicken is cooked through, but still crazy juicy.  Perfect.I serve them with ranch dressing and honey mustard for dipping.  Our side is always a green salad, to make ourselves feel just a bit better for all the gorging that takes place.

Thanks for your time.

The five people you’ll meet in the kitchen (and the one you should be)

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No matter what, everybody’s gotta eat.

I don’t care who you are, if you want to keep walking around on this rock, you need to eat.  No exceptions.

But everybody’s different and the kitchen is where these differences come into stark relief.

I have identified the five main types you may run into:

1.)There’s the cook I call “Persnickety Pierre”.This guy can do no cooking unless he is working from a recipe that is practically Byzantine in its complexity.  Every step must be related in intricate, painstaking direction.  Food that should take 30 minutes takes an hour and a half because Pierre can’t keep himself from repeatedly opening the oven to check on the proceedings.

His kitchen is so sparkling clean you have to wear sunglasses in it.  There are enough cleaning chemicals in the cabinets to hold chemistry class.  He has a diverse wardrobe of Hazmat suits.

If he cooks for you, the food probably won’t taste terribly good, but you can be confident of never contracting a food-borne illness at his table.

2.)At the polar-opposite is Lady Laissez-faire.This self-taught, self-proclaimed chef cooks constantly.  There are only two problems.

She can’t be bothered to actually read through a recipe.  Her favorite expression is, “Don’t worry; I got the gist of it.”

No dish is ever truly finished, she never knows how many it will serve, and doesn’t have a clue how to save her leftovers, of which she always has many.

Her other characteristic is a lackadaisical attitude toward substitutions.  Honey for maple syrup is perfectly acceptable.  But Lady L has run amuck.  She will blithely sub out cayenne pepper for paprika, fish sticks for fresh shrimp, and once, in a pinch, gummy bears for mushrooms.  It may rarely be edible, but it’s always original.

3.) And there’s “Can-do Man”.

This is what happens when you consume too many chemicals.

If it doesn’t come in a can, box or bag, he’s not interested.  Kits are where it’s at.  Our guy eats so many preservatives in his food that he will be dead ten years before he starts to decompose.

 

4.) There is also the cook I call, “Finger-on-the-pulse-diet chef”.This miss eats no gluten, carbs, animal fat, refined sugar, or dairy.  If there’s a new diet out there, she has done just enough research on it to be misinformed.  She generously imparts her knowledge with everyone, whether they want it or not.  Priscilla firmly believes that bad diets are the root of all society’s ills.

High cholesterol?  White food’s off limits.

Insomnia?  Go paleo.

Color blind?  Eat capers and licorice, together.

Flat feet? No food with the letter “R” in it.

The funny thing is, our girl has acid reflux, eczema, and could stand to lose 15 pounds.

5.)Our final cook is called “The Frat Boy”.There are two kitchen tools upon which Biff relies.  One’s his microwave; he can heat up Spaghetti-o’s and pop popcorn like a champ.  The other is his telephone.  He’s on a first-name basis with every take-out place in town.  He built a tool shed from pizza boxes.  His fridge contains only beer and duck sauce.  He named his dog “Raman”.

And lastly I hope, you.

Know your recipes, and keep your kitchen clean.  But don’t be too uptight, and feel free to get creative.  Short cuts are ok if used sparingly.  Learn something about nutrition and try to eat right.  And once in a while, take the night off and order in something yummy and a little naughty. Above all, keep cooking, and have fun.

Thanks for your time.

Let the chocolate chips fall where they may

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Each year by this point in January, I’m getting mighty tired of all the commercials for gym memberships and advertisements for nutritional supplements.Instead of working out and eating steamed fish, it all makes me want to lie immobile on the couch and eat milk duds.

I might feel that way, but the truth is I do still try to move around some, and eat reasonably well.  But just because I consume fresh fruit and veg and whole grains doesn’t mean I never eat anything just because it tastes good.

And I really do sleep better when I have a few bites of something sweet before bed.  So last Friday night, when, because of the snow and ice I wasn’t sure if we’d have electricity in the morning, I made a pan of brownies.I started with a mix, which I usually do.  But this batch was the best batch I’ve turned out in years.  The Kid and I loved them, which isn’t very surprising.  But the shocker was that Petey really liked them as well.  Not being a self-indulgent choco-phile, he doesn’t usually eat my brownies anymore.  He says they’re “too much” (but where chocolate is concerned, please explain to me what is too much).

I think these were better received because I didn’t go overboard on any one ingredient.  I added espresso, but just enough to heighten the flavor, not give you a coffee-favored punch in the nose.  There were chocolates, but not a surfeit of any one type.  They were salted, but only enough to give each bite the tiniest little salty crunch.

As a woman I can testify to the fact that some days only a satisfying chocolate treat can keep me from committing mayhem on loved ones and strangers alike.  These mahogany-colored confections, accompanied with copious amounts of red wine, would be a huge hit when shared by a group of women.

Best.Book.Club.Night.Ever.Boxed up and tied with a pretty red silk ribbon, then handed over for Valentine’s Day would ensure extra credit (I actually started to write ‘brownie points’ here) for the next 364 days.

I call these “Golf Brownies” because there are 4 (fore, get it?) kinds of chocolate in them.  Unfortunately, Petey doesn’t appreciate the humor of the moniker.  But bless his heart, he’s got lots of other very good qualities.

*Recipe note-For chocolate extract, I use Nielsen-Massey.  It’s available online and at local fancy cooking stores.  Maldon salt, found at the same kind of places, and lately some mega-marts, is a very large, flaky finishing salt for sprinkling.

Golf brownies

golf brownies

1 13X9 family size package Pillsbury milk chocolate brownie mix

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder dissolved in ¼ cup very hot water

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 tablespoons Hershey Special Dark cocoa powder

1 teaspoon pure chocolate flavor

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1-11.5 ounce bag Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips

1-2 teaspoons Maldon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Put all the ingredients except Maldon salt into large bowl.  Mix well.  Pour into 9X13 pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Liberally sprinkle Maldon salt on batter and bake.

Bake 13 minutes, spin pan 180 degrees and bake for 14 more.

Remove to cooling rack and allow to cool completely.  This recipe makes 2 dozen reasonably-sized pieces, or 6 extra-large PMS pieces.

Truly, brownie mix is one of the greatest benefits of living in this great country of ours.

usa brownies

Mmmmm…America…

You can have them ready for the oven in minutes, and they will obediently bend to your will, mood, and pantry.

For texture, try adding broken pretzels, nuts, or Oreo pieces.  Before baking, drop dollops of dulce de leche, peanut butter, or Nutella on  top.  Then using a sharp knife, swirl it enough to produce a marble-like effect.  Go a little sideways, and mix in crispy bacon, cracked pink peppercorns, or diced, candied ginger.

My point is that sometimes, like when it’s day three of being trapped in in the house with your entire family by snowmageddan, there’s nothing in this word that will do but a freshly baked brownie.                                                       Thanks for your time.

A rye smile

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After inhabiting this planet for more than half a century, I have ceased to be embarrassed by the fact that I have the type of sweet tooth that if I let myself, would make it perfectly feasible for me to eat an entire box of Dolly Madison vanilla zingers.Honestly, I’m not exaggerating.  One of my very favorite foods is birthday cake.  And when I say cake, I mean cake only in the sense that it is the scaffolding for mounds of delicious, delicious frosting.

But I am also a bit of a paradox inside a contradiction stuffed in a jelly donut.

I can’t abide a grain of sugar in my iced tea, I order my lattes half sweet, and I like my soft drinks lots more fizzy than syrupy.

Did you notice she has monkeys on her dress?

So, I guess those bi-polar taste buds are the reason why I really enjoy this new treat I discovered last week.

The Kid and I spent the day in Raleigh.  We visited the NC Museum of Art to check out the Da Vinci and Escher shows, and headed over to our favorite capitol city bakery, Boulted (614 W South St, Raleigh).  My child was Jonesing for some of their seeded levain; a crusty, sour loaf perfect for lashings of cultured European butter.  I snagged a bagel-like bialy for breakfast, then spied something called rye shortbread.

We added it to our order.

As soon as we got back to the car, I took a bite of my shortbread.  I was totally expecting a salty, rye/caraway-flavored buttery cracker.  What I got was something entirely different.  It was a lightly sweetened, pecan-studded cookie with the acidic kick of rye.

Once I got over the surprise, I took another bite.  And found that I really enjoyed it.  It would be the perfect thing to accompany a really thick, rich cup of hot chocolate.

I did a little research, and a little experimenting, and came up with this recipe.

Rye-Pecan shortbread

rye shortbread

1½ cups rye flour

½ cup finely chopped toasted pecans

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup butter (softened)

¼ cup Granulated Sugar

3 tablespoons honey

Whisk together flour, pecans, salt and baking powder.  Set aside.

Cream the butter, sugar and honey until just incorporated.

Add the sifted dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Mix on low until it all comes together, but no longer (there’s gluten in rye flour, and you don’t want it to develop).

Roll the dough to ½-inch thick (if the dough is too soft to roll, shape into a disk or rectangle, wrap in plastic and chill until firm). After rolling, cut into bars, circles or desired shape. Cover and chill until hard; 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place cookies on prepared pan and sprinkle with sugar and more pecans, if desired. Dock the center of each cookie with a fork.  Bake until edges are lightly browned, about 20 minutes.

Cool and store, wrapped, at room temperature for up to 1 week.

This recipe makes approximately 20 cookies.

I’m not saying I would regularly pick this cookie over a heavily decorated cupcake, or a Krispy Kreme donut fresh from its honey glazed shower, but this shortbread gets my full confectionary seal of approval.  This new treat definitely has a spot in my rotation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I suddenly feel the urgent need to see if there is a flashing “Hot” sign anywhere in the vicinity.

Thanks for your time.

Nutritional bang for your buck

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I adore breakfast food.  All of it: eggs, carbs dripping with butter and syrup, processed meats, everything.breakyBut, I absolutely cannot face the thought of bellying up to the breakfast bar the moment I roll out of bed.  It makes me queasy to even think of food then.  I think my stomach wakes up much slower than the rest of me.

So often my breakfast is almost at lunch time.

In the spirit of total honesty, I have to confess though that some days I fall far short of nutritional excellence and my meal is sorely lacking.  But frozen yogurt and lattes both have calcium.  Right?  Right?

It’s an inconvenient bit of truth, but even though two foods might, on paper, have the same amount of calories, in reality they don’t.Think about it.  Say you drink a 200 hundred calorie latte.  Although you get a tiny bump of calcium, it really is nutritionally empty and your body can digest it in mere minutes.

But say that instead you have 200 calories of oatmeal made with skim milk, and studded with dried fruit and nuts.

Just off the top your body has to work much harder and longer to digest this meal.  It also contains complex carbohydrates, fiber, and protein.  It fuels your body, and you will feel full for hours.  Full enough to walk right past that vending machine.So, this week I have some suggestions for quick meals that will fill you up, be better for you, will be much more satisfying, and make you feel much more virtuous.

Quick, homemade meals:

Hot cereal- Oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, grits, or even something like hot Grape Nuts are all terrific.  You can make them sweet with additions like honey or maple syrup, then stir in nuts, seeds, and fresh or dried fruit.  Also don’t be afraid to add things like cocoa powder, vanilla and spices.

But hot cereal is also very tasty when you go in a savory direction.  Try topping it with things like caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, and sundried tomatoes.  Nuts work well here too.  Then you can perk it up even more with hot sauce, cheese, horseradish, and herbs.  Maybe top it off with a poached egg.Toasts and sandwiches:

First, get rid of that spongy white bread-like substance that they sell in plastic bags.  Then get to know multigrain.  The labels can be confusing, and manufacturers can be deceptive, so either buy it at a bakery so that you can talk to the baker and learn how it was made, or purchase products that say “100% whole grain”.

You can fill that healthy platform with anything that tickles your fancy.  Smashed avocado, scrambled egg, peanut butter and sliced apple, even a grilled cheese that you stuffed with some tomato and fresh greens.  How about tuna mixed with hummus?

Smoothies: Buy various frozen fruits, leafy greens, and maybe some low fat Greek yogurt. Throw different combos into your blender until you find a recipe that you like.

Store-bought, but pretty healthy:

Tacos:  Gosh, I love the fact that tacos can be on this list.

Yes, tacos can be fatty, nutritional nightmares.  But done right, they can be downright good for you.  Leave off the cheese and sour cream—dress with salsas only.  Then fill with grilled or roasted meat, and raw veggies.  I wouldn’t go for more than two for lunch though, no matter how tasty they may be.

At the deli:  Clear soups and lightly dressed salads are both good choices.

In addition, sandwiches can be a wise choice as long as it’s on whole-grain bread or wraps.  Grilled meat is better than cold cuts.  Raw veggies can be eaten with impunity.  And everybody knows that regular mayo isn’t great.  But be careful with mustard, too.  Some are chock full of sodium and/or fat.

The biggest thing to remember when eating out is to watch that serving size.  At most places, a single serving is enough for two—meals or people.  Either take home half in a doggy-bag or think about possibly ordering the child’s size.So, become mindful of what you put inside your body.  That way, you can have that second cookie before bed.

Thanks for your time.

 

The opposite of money

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Give a man a ribeye and you can eat in twenty minutes; teach a man to cook a pot roast and dinner will be ready in six to seven hours.Last week I talked about cooking with ingredients that are scarce and expensive.

This week is all about the ingredient that money can’t buy—time.

Salad bars and prepped produce in grocery stores can be a convenient time saver.  But you will absolutely pay for it.  Usually 3-4 times the price of its un-messed-with cousins.“Peasant” food; tough cuts of meat, slow cooking beans, humble, tough grains all take time to prepare.  On the other hand, choice cuts of meat and tender, young vegetables only suffer if they stay on the heat too long.

Frozen dinners and pre-cooked meals from your local store’s hot bars more expensive by a factor or five.  Like my mom says, “Boy, they sure saw you coming”.  It may be nice to quickly grab ready-to-eat dinner, and sometimes necessary, but doing it night after night will triple or even quadruple your monthly food budget.

It’s all about the time.

Like last week, this week’s recipe uses mushrooms; but here the much less costly button-style.  It’s risotto that can be breakfast, lunch or dinner.  It’s not fast, and has to be tended.  All of the components are relatively cheap and just need flavor to be teased from them.

Bacon and egg risotto

b&e risotto

3 slices bacon cut into ¾ inch strips

1 pound button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

1 large shallot, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups Arborio rice

½  cup Marsala wine

4 ½ cups chicken stock (approx)

12 ounces frozen peas

¼ cup parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons butter, divided

Salt and pepper to taste

6 eggs

1 tablespoon vinegar

Put stock into saucepan, and set to medium-low.  (You only want stock to simmer; turn down if it starts to boil.)

Put bacon into other saucepan, and render on medium-low until it is brown and crispy.  Remove from pan and set aside.

Pour off the bacon grease until you only have about 1-2 tablespoons in the pot.  Add mushrooms and season.  Sautee until the moisture has released and cooked out.  Add shallot and cook until the veg starts to brown around the edges.

Stir in risotto, garlic and one tablespoon butter.  Cook until the rice starts to brown just a bit.

Pour in Marsala, and cook until it’s completely absorbed.

While the wine is cooking out, put a shallow bottom pan on the stove, fill with water, and add vinegar.  Turn on medium and bring to very gentle simmer.

Constantly stirring, add about 1/2 cup of hot stock to rice pot until the liquid is absorbed, then add more.  After about 3 cups stock, start tasting for doneness and seasoning.

At this point, start poaching eggs, 3 at a time for about 4 minutes.  Remove from water with slotted spoon, and place on a plate covered with a clean kitchen towel to dry.

When the rice is cooked through, add peas, butter and cheese.  Gently stir until butter is melted.

Place about 1 1/2 cups risotto on plate and put 2 poached eggs on top.  Garnish with crispy bacon.  Serves 3.I won’t try to sugar-coat this for you.  It takes a good hour start to finish.

But done correctly you will have a trendy restaurant dish that patrons pay big bucks for.

Because even though money can’t buy time, some people will still try to charge for it.time_is_money-wallpaper-800x600Thanks for your time.

Don’t hide your ‘shrooms under a bushel

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I have no idea how I lucked out, but I did.

Normally chanterelle mushrooms sell for about thirty dollars a pound.  Consequently, I’ve never had the pleasure of their company in my kitchen.

But a while back I was in Whole Foods.  I don’t whether it was a mistake, there was a glut on the market, or it was a straight-up holiday miracle, but those puppies were selling for $4.99 a pound.  I filled a bag, and skipped all the way home.  The whole time I expected someone to grab me because there’d been some type of grievous mushroom error.

Nope, I made it back to Chez Matthews, chanterelles in hand.

I then pondered preparation.

Spinach salad: one of my favorite recipes with mushrooms.

We eat mushrooms a few times a week, in all kind of dishes.  But I didn’t want to dim their star power one bit.  It would be like having Aretha Franklin over only to ask her to sing “Happy Birthday”.

So they would not languish in gravy, or meatloaf, or soup.  I wanted my windfall to b.e the star.

About the same time I was in Lowes Foods and bought a bag of completely adorable cherubic red skinned potatoes.  They were literally the size of a shooter used in a game of marbles.  Actually they’re known as marble potatoes.

To celebrate these two delightful, earthy treasures, I decided to do a simple roasting.  This would keep them close to their natural state.  I wouldn’t try to manipulate the flavors either, but just bring out the very best of them that I could.

If you don’t happen to luck out and find some fresh chanterelles that you can afford without a second mortgage, any type of mushroom can be used.

Oven-roasted chanterelles and potatoes

roasted chanterelles

1 ½ pounds (approx) marble or grape-sized potatoes, washed, but left unpeeled

1 ¼ pounds (approx) chanterelles or other wild mushrooms, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces.

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Place a large pan into oven and preheat to 450 degrees.

Place potatoes and mushrooms into a large bowl, and drizzle with oil.  Season with salt and pepper and toss to coat.

When the pan and oven are up to temp, pour vegetables onto pan into one even layer.  Bake for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender, and mushrooms are brown and crispy around the edges, stirring every 10 minutes.

Serves 4-6.

Although The Kid might strenuously disagree with this statement, I usually don’t like to lecture.  But in this case, I feel that I must make a point.

I’m not sure that we always remember how fortunate we are as Americans.  The quantity and quality of our choices with which to stock our pantries is almost obscene.  Within thirty minutes of my house there are probably fifty different places to shop for our dinner.  The only limits are money and imagination.

Even if I am cooking something as common and prosaic as hamburger, tomatoes or egg noodles, I feel the need to honor the food.  To treat each ingredient as lovingly and skillfully as I am able.  Not only am I paying basic respect to the cow, farmer, or noodle maker, the flavors that result will reflect the care I have taken.

Heavy sauces and complicated cooking procedures originally became popular to hide wonky, and even rancid food.

But because of the plethora of choices, and superlative quality the best thing we can do is to get out of our food’s way and let it shine.

Thanks for your time.

Don’t be that guy

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I cook with stock all the time.  I use it for sauces, and gravies; I cook rice and pasta in it.  And almost every single time, it’s from a box, or the grocery store.  I’ve only ever made stock from scratch, once, which I recounted a month or so ago.

But.

There is currently running a commercial for pre-made cartons of stock.  It’s actually a brand that I consider quality, which I’ve used numerous times.  I do though take issue with the message of this ad. In various vignettes, people are insisting they cook because they make “they make the best chicken noodle soup”.  Then they proceed to show them adding some chicken meat, a few veg, and some bagged egg noodles to a bubbling pot of said company’s chicken stock.

Yeah…no.

These poor, deluded folk are not chicken soup makers.  At best they are “stuff-put-er-inners”.  To produce homemade chicken noodle soup you must start with a chicken, and maybe even make your own noodles.

Anything less is practically opening a can.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  I have enjoyed many cans of varieties of chicken noodle (stars, noodle-o’s, curly, spaghetti-shaped) soups.  But I never tried to pass it off as scratch-made.

Now, if you want to make a chicken soup that begins with stock (canned or made in your own kitchen) which you can still claim as your own, I’ve got a recipe for you.

This is a rich, creamy, lemony chowder.  It’s a little bit of a riff on Panera Bread’s creamy chicken and wild rice soup.  It also freezes and reheats well.

Lemon chicken and wild rice chowder

chick chow

8 tablespoons butter divided

1/2 cup flour

3 carrots, peeled and cut into same size pieces

4 stalks celery, leaves and all, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

3/4 cup dried mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon dry thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Zest of 2 lemons, divided

Juice of 2 lemons

1 cup rice and/or grain mix with wild rice (I like Bob’s Red Mill Brown and Wild Rice)

1 1/2cups frozen shoe peg corn

1 cup white wine

5 cups chicken stock

1 1/2 cups skim milk

1 cup heavy cream

4-5 cups cooked chicken, white and dark, cut or ripped into bite-sized pieces.

Make roux:

Melt 6 tablespoons butter in small skillet.  Whisk in flour and cook over low until light blond in color.

Soup:

In a large heavy pot, melt 2 tablespoons butter.  Place in pot: Carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, thyme, bay leaves, half the lemon zest, salt and pepper.  Cook until there is some color on veg, and carrots are starting to soften. 

Stir in rice and/or grain mix and let cook until they start to brown around the edges.

Deglaze the pot with wine.  Cook, stirring often until it’s all cooked in.

Pour in stock and skim milk.  Bring to slow simmer.  Add corn.

When the rice/grain is fully cooked (time varies according to type), bring to a boil and whisk in roux until it’s cream soup thickness. 

Turn down to low.  Pour in lemon juice.  When the juice is thoroughly mixed in, stir in cream and gently add chicken.

Check for seasoning, and keep warm until service.  Garnish each bowl with a sprinkling of lemon zest.

Makes 8-10 servings.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This soup is delicious and quite impressive.  A soup that you can be proud to call your own.  So you don’t need to pretend you did something you really didn’t.

Don’t be that guy.

that guy

Thanks for your time.

A spicy tale

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Boy, I raised one thoughtful spawn.

Very close, very old friends of The Kid just had a baby (not quite one of those new year babies—they missed it by about 36 hours).

But since it’s not possible to wrap up sleep and deliver it all tied up with a pretty bow, my child did the next best thing; the gift of time was chosen.

Homemade wild rice chicken chowder and a lentil stew were made, along with something sweet with which to nibble.  The chowder and stew were prepared and are in the chill chest in freezer bags.  But because of The Kid’s work commitments, I volunteered to bake and pack up the cookies.

When the couple was asked for their confectionary preference, a ginger molasses cookie was requested.  Since this particular type is not in our family’s repertoire, an internet search was made.

I found a recipe that I felt hit most of the notes, and started with that.  Then I fleshed it out by altering flavor and techniques.

I used a vanilla bean and vanilla extract.  The caviar I added to the butter.  I tossed the empty pod into my sugar canister.  The original recipe, for some reason, never called for nutmeg.  I added it.  I also added nutmeg to the rolling sugar.I used a cookie scoop to portion the dough, instead of just a spoon.  Using one is quicker, easier, and makes all the cookies the same size, which means they all cook at the same time.

I leave you with one crucially important piece of advice.

Do not crowd the cookies in the pan while baking.  And for the love of all that is holy, do not rush them into the oven by cutting short the dough refrigeration time.  They will spread out all over the sheet, and not set up correctly.  I did this, and had to throw away the first batch of nine (See, I crowded the sheet pan).  They tasted really good, but were too thin and gooey to live.

Chewy ginger molasses cookies

ginger cookies 2

1 vanilla bean

1½ cups butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar + more for rolling

½ cup molasses

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1 ½ teaspoons salt

 DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Split the vanilla bean, scrape caviar onto butter.  Set aside at room temp to soften.

Whisk together flour, soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt. Set aside.

With electric mixer, beat together softened butter and 2 cups sugar on medium for 1 minute until light and fluffy.  Add in eggs, molasses, vanilla extract, and beat on medium-low until combined.

Gradually add in dry ingredient mixture and beat until fully incorporated.

Using a medium (about 2 tablespoon capacity) cookie scoop, portion out all the dough.

Refrigerate scoops for 1 hour then remove and them roll into balls.  Return to fridge and let chill another 30-45 minutes.

Fill a small bowl with about 1/2 cup sugar and a pinch of nutmeg, and roll four balls in one at a time until they’re completely coated. Place on parchment-covered cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes, spin the pan 180 degrees then bake for 5 more until they begin to slightly crack on top (They’ll crack more while cooling.).  Remove from the oven and transfer cookies, still on parchment to wire racks to cool. Bake off the next four.  Store in a sealed container for up to 1 week.

Makes about 2 ½ dozen.

I’ve never been a ginger snap, molasses cookie kind of girl.  But I have to admit, when I tasted one of the rejects, I was really surprised.  Yes, they are very spicy.  But extremely tasty, too.  These are more of a grown-up cookie for somebody who wants less sweet and more sassy to their desserts.  They would also be really, really good cookies with which to make ice cream sandwiches, say with some butter pecan, or peach ice cream.

And again, do not rush these into the oven.  They must be very cold and hard before hitting the heat or you will have delicious manhole covers.

This is bad.  You do not want this.

Thanks for your time.

 

 

Random stuff I discovered and wrote down in 2015 Part 1

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

I have a diary with a padded blue silk cover.  I got it as a gift in high school.  For some reason, it resides in a bookshelf in my living room.

I pulled it down today and took a look at it.

It has about 200 lined pages.  I have filled a grand total of eleven pages; with seven entries from 1982, and one from 1991.  Each sentence is more forced and stilted than the last.

Yeah, I’m really bad at keeping up with that kind of thing.  But I think that my non-stop internal monologue and the fact that I endlessly overthink every decision; no matter if it is picking lunch off a menu, a plumber to repair a leak, or a retirement plan counts as examination.  I just stink at manually archiving it.

But this year I did something I’ve never been able to do before.  I kept a log of all culinary episodes, experiences, and epiphanies.

I was faithful to this project, and have an entire year’s worth of ruminations.

For the next few weeks, I will share them with you, gentle reader, in this space.

January 3rd– Picked up some clearance items today.  No matter what color or shape they are in, Reese’s cups and M&M’s are just as yummy.  But it seems like they taste a little bit better when they’re 75% off.

January 11th– It may be cheap, but egg nog just tastes sad in late January.  And nobody wants another dessert made from it.

January 21st– Nobody makes better eggplant in garlic sauce than Grace’s Café (downstairs at Trent Hall, 331 Trent Dr.).  But even better, they offer brown rice, and for the toddler (mine) taste buds, they will make a version with no spicy heat.  Also, they have a club sandwich that makes Petey’s day.

February 2nd– Cooking black rice takes just as much time as brown rice.  I probably should have checked that before I put a large pot of it on—we wouldn’t have had to eat dinner at 10:30.

February 9th– Parts and Labor is the restaurant at Durham music venue Motorco (723 Rigsbee Ave).  They have an imaginative scratch-made menu of finger foods and munchies.  The Kid and I had six or seven items and almost everything was really tasty.  The sliders are not to be missed.  The artichoke fritters while a great idea, and much anticipated, were a little greasy.  But because of that they would have made stellar drunk food.

Unfortunately, I was sober tonight.

March 8th– Took a trip to Crabtree Valley Mall with the whole family.  Had brunch at an eatery named Red Monkey Tavern.

red monkey

The food was really good—they have duck mac and cheese, for goodness sake.  Had the avocado BLT.  The bacon was thick, tasty, and crispy.  The avocado was perfectly ripe and creamy.

But they are, in my opinion, much too fond of the spicy.  Lots of chorizos, and a really hot chipotle mayo.  Even their tarragon mayo had quite a kick to it.

But their truffle Parmigiano fries are worth the trip to Raleigh.

April 9th– Made some brownies, and have about 10 pounds of M&M’s from Easter.  I threw caution to the wind and mixed a couple cups into the batter, and sprinkled a handful over the top.  They were really good.  You get all the creamy chocolate of chips, but the bonus is the snap of that candy shell.

Ooh, I’ll bet they would rock in some blondies.

April 29th– Petey and I went to the opening Wednesday of the Durham farmers market.  It’s one of my favorite days of the year.  In addition to some quite tasty Honeygirl Mead, I scored some pea shoots.  They were delicious on a cold sandwich.  I enjoyed them so much I decided to see what else they would work on.

And salads, and risotto, and…

Scrambled eggs, pasta, burgers, cream soup, and avocado toast all work great.  I’m guessing ice cream is a no go.

Next week I’ll dish on May, June, July, and August.

   Thanks for your time.