recipes

Jam session

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Although some people who know me (Hello Petey and The Kid) may call it an affliction, I just happen to appreciate jam and jelly.

Right now in my fridge there are 13 jars of various fruit preserves, including the Stonewall Kitchen caramel apple butter I picked up yesterday.

Accueil Caramel Apple Butter

That’s not counting Goober Grape and the many, many bottles in the honey/syrup subsection.  Give me some toast, a biscuit, or waffle, tell me your mood, and I’ve got a topping for ya.

Roll over image to magnify

My true life-long love affair. Petey Who?

Even though I pick up new sugary, jewel-colored jars wherever I go, there are a couple of types that I would never consider buying because I always make them from scratch: onion marmalade and garlic jam.

this is approx since i don t really measure 2 med large red onions ...

The onion marmalade derived from a newspaper article I read many years ago.  And the garlic goop is the byproduct of making garlic oil, which I always try to have on hand.

Either can be used by themselves, like a schmear under some melted cheese on a sandwich or a burger or to dress up some crostini.  You can also use it as an ingredient; I stir a heaping tablespoon of onions into the sauce for my smothered pork chops, and the best red salsa I’ve ever had includes garlic jam.

Neither is hard or expensive to create.  They only cost time and the willingness for you and your home to be heavily allium-scented for a day or so.

Onion Marmalade

5 pound yellow onions

2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme

Peel onions and cut in half.  Slice into ¼ inch thick half-moons.

Place largest, heaviest pot you own on a burner and turn to medium-low.  Put in all ingredients, and toss to coat.  Cover and cook for about 15-20 minutes or until most of the liquid has been released from onions.

Uncover and cook on low, stirring frequently until the onions have cooked down and are deeply amber, about 3-4 hours.  Don’t rush or they will burn and stick.  Taste for seasoning. Makes 2-3 cups.

This’ll last about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.  I usually keep about a third in the fridge to use right away and label and freeze the rest.  It will give anything you use it in a serious depth of flavor—but be careful, the taste is intense; it’s easy to overdo.

The garlic is even easier.

Garlic Oil and Jam

4 heads garlic, separated and peeled, with tough, dry ends cut off

2 cups olive oil

3 cups vegetable oil—I use grapeseed

Salt & pepper to taste

½ teaspoon dried thyme

Juice of 1 lemon

Place garlic in heavy saucepan and pour in oils.  Turn to medium-low and cook slowly until garlic is light golden-brown, about 45-60 minutes.  Turn off burner and let oil and garlic cool.

Remove cloves to bowl of food processor and pour oil into clean receptacle and refrigerate for up to 3 months.

Process cloves with salt, pepper, and thyme until mostly smooth.  Pour in lemon juice and process until it is very smooth and looks like humus.  Taste for seasoning and refrigerate for 2-3 weeks in airtight container.  Makes about 1 cup.

With these in your fridge, you can spike a quick weeknight meal, and that dinner will take on a slow-cooked, fussed-over taste.

Or, like The Kid, you can eat the garlic jam from a spoon when you think nobody’s looking.

katey's new hat

The Kid, in disguise, after eating all of the garlic marmalade.

Thanks for your time.

Orange you glad?

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Consider for a moment, the carrot.

The humble carrot.

It is literally, one of the most down-to-earth veggies that we have.  You’d think that something so humble would do well no matter what type of above-ground procedures it endures.

And you would be wrong.

You know those baby carrots that they sell in the plastic sack?  Yeah, they aren’t actually baby anything.  They are regular carrots which are whittled down, and treated with chemicals.  Don’t go there.  Buy fresh and cut them yourself.  They’ll be about half the price as well.

I’m a big fan of IQF (individually quick frozen) produce.  As soon as they’re harvested, the vegetables are taken to a processing center very near the fields.  They are normally frozen within minutes.  So, unless you grow them in your own yard, it’s hard to get much fresher.  With peas and corn, the sugars start turning to starch as soon as they ae picked.  I almost never buy fresh peas, and only purchase corn in the summertime, from a farmer’s market.

Fresh is almost always best.

Not though, for our friend the carrot.  The hard flesh seems to turn spongy when frozen, and the texture of the cooked carrot becomes unpleasant.  I think the sugar and ice crystals really slice the carrots up and they become badly damaged.  It makes for a very unhappy eating experience.

We eat a lot of carrots, but it’s always from fresh.  My favorite cooking method is glazed.  It seems that no matter how many I make, there are never leftovers.

It’s a simple dish, so every component is important.  Each ingredient has a cheaper, faux version, but I urge you not to use them.  You’ll only use a bit of each item, so it’s not an expensive dish.

Chinese five-spice powder is an ingredient in my carrots.  I also use it in my holiday ham, and on sweet potatoes, among other things.  It’s a spice blend used in many Asian dishes.  If you eat much Chinese, you’ll recognize the aroma.

Traditionally, it’s a mixture of star anise, clove, Chinese cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns, and fennel seed.  Simple, right?  Yeah, not so much.  I use is a brand called Dynasty.  I get it at Li Ming Asian Market (3400 Westgate Dr, Durham).  But, I’d picked up a jar of Spice Islands at Kroger once when I thought I was out.  I’d never even opened it, so one day when my mom was visiting, I told her about the carrots, and gave her the recipe.  To save her a hunt, I decided to give her my unopened bottle.  Then I looked at the ingredients.  First off, there was way more than five; secondly, the only thing I recognized was cinnamon.  And, the aroma was not right.  I tossed it, and gave her a bag with some from my Dynasty bottle.

glazed carrots

Everything you need.

Glazed carrots

2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into similarly sized pieces

½ cup chicken stock

4 tablespoons butter

¼ cup pure maple syrup

¼ teaspoon Chinese 5-spice

Salt and pepper to taste

Put everything into a heavy skillet.  Cover and cook on medium until the carrots are crisp-tender.  Uncover and continue to cook until a thick, glazy sauce has formed. 

Serves four.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love making do, and saving cash.  But sometimes it’s not worth it.  What you save in money, you’ll lose in flavor and enjoyment.

So to save up for those cute boots, buy your meat on sale.  But don’t cheap out on the glazed carrots.

Please pass the discount tuna fish…

Thanks for your time.

Warm and Gooey

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So last week Petey and I had a couple of errands to run.  It was one of those really cold, windy, raw days.  It was the kind of day where you’d happily stay bundled up in bed sipping hot chocolate if you could.  But of course you can’t (or at least I can’t).

As we were coming home, we noticed that the convenience store on the corner wasn’t selling gas, and it looked kind of dark inside.  I started to get a wee nervous.

Inside our house my fears were realized.  The power was out.  It was dim and chilly.  We had some more running to do, so we locked up and left, hoping that the electricity would be back when we came home.

C’mon guys…

Once we finished everything, it was dark outside, and even colder than it had been, but the power was finally back on.  Of course it took the rest of the night to reheat the house, but at least we had the electricity with which to do it.  For the rest of the evening, we felt pretty chilly and quite sorry for ourselves.

That night would have been perfect for a warm, moist gooey piece of my special banana bread.

bb bread

Brown butter banana bread.

Brown butter country banana bread

The day before:

Toast ½ cup pecan pieces in dry pan until the color deepens and you can smell the toasted aroma.  Store them in airtight container.

Make brown butter:

Put 5 ½ tablespoons butter into saucepan.  Melt on medium.  Turn down heat, and continue to simmer until the milk solids turn amber and the aroma is warm and nutty.  Cool, stirring frequently to keep the brown bits suspended in the butter.  Once cool, refrigerate.  The next day, take butter out of fridge a couple hours before making bread, so it can soften.

Banana bread:

1 cup light brown sugar

Brown butter, softened

2 eggs

1 ½ cups ripe bananas, mashed smooth

1/3 cup water

1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ cup toasted pecans

1-8 ounce bag Heath Bits’O Brickle Toffee Bits

1 tablespoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease bottom of 8 ½ or 9 inch loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar in large bowl of stand mixer or with hand mixer.  Mix in eggs one at a time until blended.  Add bananas, water, vanilla, and nutmeg; beat 30 seconds.  Stir in rest of ingredients, except for nuts and toffee until it just comes together.  Gently stir in nuts and toffee chips.

Pour into loaf pan.  Bake until toothpick comes out clean, 60-75 minutes.  Cool five minutes and turn out onto cooling rack.  Makes about 24 slices.

There are two ways to eat this; for breakfast, or as a dessert.

For AM banana bread, spread slices with softened butter.  Place in a 300 degree oven for 15-20 minutes until browned and crisped.

Even better with a schmear of peanut butter.

For an indulgent after dinner treat you’ll need dulce de leche, a cooked caramel from Latin America.  But luckily, it’s crazy easy to make.

Take one can of sweetened condensed milk (unopened), and place it in a large heavy pot.  Cover it with water, and bring to slow simmer.  Continue simmering for 4 hours, making sure it is always completely submerged.   Remove from water and let it totally cool (I mean it.  For safety’s sake, make sure it’s cool) before opening.  Or cook completely submerged on low in a slow cooker for 8-10 hours (Please, please be careful—hot sugar is so dangerous it can badly burn your unborn descendants).

Presto change-o! It’s like magic.

Drizzle a little onto warm slices of banana bread and add a scoop of ice cream if desired.  If the loaf is to be exclusively for dessert, after removing from pan onto cooling rack, poke it all over with a toothpick, and pour warm dulce all over the top and let it soak in and cool before slicing.

This would be perfectly yummy if eaten in the summer.  But there’s something about eating it warm, when it’s cold outside that feels like a hug from Grandma, without that pesky eau de Bengay.

Yeah, she wasn’t feeling the Bengay line.

Thanks for your time.

Column, the first

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Good morning Henderson.

My name is Debbie Matthews, and I am delighted to have been asked to write a weekly column about food, cooking, and all the whimsy that pops into my head on a regular basis.

First, I’d like to tell you a bit about me.

Although a military kid, I’ve spent the majority of my life in NC.  I’m married to Petey, and have been since the invention of movable type.  We have one child, The Kid, who was educated at the New England Culinary Institute, and is my usual gastronomic partner in crime.

My favorite foods are potato salad and birthday cake.  I know all the lyrics to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (and most of the lyrics to American Pie).  I can bend my thumbs backwards at a 90% angle.  I love dogs, and have a 200 pound Anatolian shepherd named Riker.  My favorite movie is The Big Chill.  I’m a fan of Doctor Who and pretty shoes.

A few of my favorite things-look at those awesome shoes.

A few of my favorite things-look at those awesome shoes.

Not many things make me happier than putting on some good music (mostly 70’s and 80’s rock, with a dash of ragtime), and cavorting around my kitchen, coming up with new dishes and putting twists on old.

Although Petey is one of the least fussy eaters ever, I can tell by his extremely low-key reaction how well a new dish has gone over.  He is the best Guinea pig for whom a girl could ask.

Recently I had in the freezer both a bit of pastry dough, and some short ribs I’d gotten on sale.  I made short rib hand pies.

Sometimes called a pasty, but a pie by any name…

Petey liked.

Short rib hand pies

For ribs:

2 3-4 inch pieces boneless short ribs

¾ teaspoon either seasoning salt or salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 250.  Heavily season short ribs and double wrap with foil, leaving a little space around ribs for juices.  Cook for 2-2 ½ hours or until falling-apart tender. 

For gravy and pie:

8 ounces mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

½ yellow onion, chopped

¾ teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped finely

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon olive oil

3-4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon tomato paste

½ cup Sherry

2 cups beef stock

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons horseradish

Salt and pepper to taste

2-6 inch rounds pie crust, about 1/8-1/4 inch thick (either store-bought or homemade)

Roux:

½ cup butter and ½ cup flour cooked together until peanut butter colored.

In a skillet, sauté mushrooms, onions, and herbs in olive oil.  Season.  When veggies start to caramelize, add garlic and cook ‘til fragrant.  Add tomato paste and cook until color’s deepened to burgundy.  Deglaze pan with Sherry, and cook out.

Stir in stock, Worcestershire, horseradish, and bring to boil.  Whisk in roux until it’s the thickness of cake frosting.  Mix in shredded meat and any juices. 

Place about ¾ cup of cooled short rib mixture into each crust. Fold over and seal with egg wash (1 egg and 1 tablespoon water).  Brush egg wash over pie, and cut 3 slits to vent.  Sprinkle top with salt and pepper.

Bake at 375 for 30-45 minutes or until golden brown.  Serves 2.

You’ll have filling left.  I froze mine, and another night will thin it and spoon it over grits.  Just make sure to label your bag.

Though I am very definitely neither Julia Child nor Erma Bombeck, I hope you’ll enjoy my earnest scribblings.  But if even you don’t, there is something that this column will do magnificently—line bird cages.

Yuck.

Thanks for your time.

Crying at the party

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A potato salad party.

Perfect resting place for mayo.

Yes.

A pork chop party.

Yes.

A buttermilk biscuit party.

Yes.

I would be much happier to attend any of those parties instead of a pizza party.  What is it about pizza that automatically makes it into a party?  Even ice cream only rates ‘social’ status.  Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t adore pizza.

Um…not so much.

I don’t hate it.  Every year or so I get a craving for classic, red-sauced, mozzarella cheesed, crispy-crusted pizza.  And if that’s all that’s available to eat, I wouldn’t go hungry.  But the thought of a big gooey slice doesn’t move me.  And I certainly don’t like it enough to eat bad pizza pie; which believe me, abounds.

I do really like a couple of specifically dressed pies, but Petey insists that they really aren’t pizza.

When the planets align and I’ve shown up on the right day, Whole Foods has a pizza that I love.  When it’s on the menu, I cannot leave the store without a slice.  In fact, I recently lucked out and it’s what I had for dinner tonight.

It’s carbonara.  Done right, spaghetti carbonara is a heavenly experience.  The traditional sauce is deceptively simple.  Four ingredients: pancetta, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and eggs.  It’s much easier to make badly than to do right, then you end up with scrambled eggs, or watery, flavorless despair.

Done right.

bc

Done oh so very wrong.

Whole Foods’ pizza uses an Alfredo sauce base, so skips the hazards that the eggs represent.  It’s pure, cheesy comfort food.

When I worked on Saturdays for Bosco at his bookstore I would order something to be delivered.

About half of those Saturdays I would order from Amante Pizza.  What lured me in is their ginormous selection of toppings.  Nine cheeses and thirteen meats.  Seven sauces and only one is red, not counting salsa.  Too many fruits and veggies to count—they actually have pecans.  Pecans on a pizza.  Who knew?

That’s the great thing about pizza.  Everybody can have their own pizza, and everybody gets to choose their own toppings.  But at restaurants each extra topping start at around a dollar, so pizzas for a crowd can get expensive quick.

So what’s a family on a budget supposed to do?

Do it at home.  Yes, at home.  I know, making crust can be a pain, and take hours.

But, I did some research, and many, many places sell raw pizza dough to take home and tart up yourself.  Both white and wheat.  Everywhere from Harris Teeter to my old fave, Amante.

And in case you’re a pizza pie apostate like me, here is my very special Amante order to get your own ideas percolating.

Now this is pizza pie.

Heretical pizza

Base:

½ cup olive oil

4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

4 sprigs rosemary

1 bunch basil, ripped, stems included

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat all ingredients in small saucepan until fragrant.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Strain.

Toppings:

1 cup mozzarella (fresh cheese in liquid, not bagged and pre-shredded)

1 cup broccoli florets, steamed tender-crisp

2 tablespoons oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, julienned

½ small red onion, sliced thinly

4 ounces mushrooms, sliced

1 small zucchini, sliced

1 chicken breast, cut into bite-sized chunks

Put cookie sheet or pizza stone into oven and preheat to 450 for at least 20 minutes.  Sauté mushrooms and zucchini until softened in a bit of basil-rosemary oil.  Remove veg from skillet and place on paper towel to get rid of moisture, then add chicken to pan.  Cook until browned.

Stretch dough to make a 3/4 inch thick, 8-9 inch circle.  Brush with oil, then drop dollops of cheese all over it.  Scatter on rest of ingredients.  Season.

Place pizza onto stone or sheet.  Turn oven to low broiler, and cook for 12 minutes.  Then turn oven back to 450 and cook 2 minutes more.

Remove from oven and let rest for 3-5 minutes before slicing.  Serves one, but that’s the point.

So I guess I do like my own version of pizza.  But I still don’t think it deserves a party devoted to it.  Just off the top of my head, what if instead we started having bacon parties?

With bells on, I’ll be there.

I’ll RSVP that sucker right now.

Thanks for your time.

Elementary School Romance

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Special Note: Starting next week, The Henderson (NC) Daily Dispatch will be running a weekly original column by me as well.  I will also post it on the blog. d.

I’ve written before about how Petey is the perfect spouse for me.

But on the fancy/romance scale, he lands well above Blackbeard, but somewhere below Pepe Le Pew.  Hi heart’s in the right place, but he eschews elaborate trappings—he is absolutely and completely unpretentious.

More romantical than him…

But less than him.

So I started thinking about what would be a welcome Valentine’s dinner for him.

He wouldn’t want anything with complicated sauces, or something that has to be put together with tweezers.  I also don’t think he’d be impressed by a dish that comes to the table on fire.

Plus, me and open flames?  Probably not the best idea.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

What I came up with was bacon-wrapped tenderloin, boxed scalloped potatoes (hear me out before you make up your mind about them), peas and carrots, and an apple crisp.

The steak comes with some uncomfortable questions.

How many of you have made a tenderloin, and desired to cloak it in bacon?  And how many of you ended up with the meat marred by flabby, greasy uncooked bacon in the finished dish?  And why can restaurants serve up perfect, gorgeous crispy bacon around the food?

The answer is par-cooking.  It works like a charm.  I checked in with one of my favorite restaurant chefs, James Clark at the Carolina Inn, and he said that’s what pros do as well.

bacon filet

I’d marry it.

He bakes the bacon until it’s half-cooked, and I microwave, but the result is the same.  Partially cooking it before wrapping will ensure a brown, crispy, and delicious belt for the finished steak.  Then wrap, and cook the meat to your liking.

About the spuds: I told you that my spouse doesn’t go in for fancy, and the potato dish for his special dinner is the perfect illustration of this.

At the supermarket, in the aisle with the Hamburger Helper and their ilk, are potato kits.  Amongst them are scalloped potatoes.  The store brand is just as good as the name brands.  You shouldn’t pay more than a dollar.  In fact, the last box I bought was 85 cents.

They’re easy to put together, and cook at an appropriate temp for the steak, if that’s how you choose to finish it.  I’m almost ashamed to tell you, but I enjoy them as well (though they wouldn’t be on my special dinner menu).

For a veg, Petey enjoys the ubiquitous elementary school side dish, peas and carrots.  But not the colorless, flavorless, canned version from childhood.  Mine are fresh, colorful, tasty—and easy.

Pretty and tasty

Peas and carrots

1 ½ cups frozen peas

3 carrots, washed, peeled, and cut into ¼ pieces

½ cup chicken stock or water

3 tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper

Put everything except peas into skillet, cover, and cook on medium until the carrots are crisp/tender.  Uncover and cook until the liquid’s mostly gone.  Add peas and cook until hot and liquid’s thickened into a buttery sauce.

Taste for seasoning and serve.  Serves 2-3.

For dessert I came up with chocolate pudding.  Then I realized that chocolate pudding is a childhood favorite of mine.  Petey’s always loved apples and cinnamon.

The way to Petey’s heart.

Petey’s caramel apple crisp

For filling:

4 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into 1/8 inch slices

½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Pinch salt

Juice of ½ lemon

Crumb topping:

1 cup rolled oats

½ cup flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

4 tablespoons butter

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla

For plating:

Vanilla ice cream

½ jar favorite caramel sauce

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease 8×8 baking dish and layer apple into it.  In a separate bowl, whisk together rest of filling ingredients and pour over apples.

In another bowl, mix all topping ingredients except butter.  Put butter into bowl, and with fingers, mash butter into mixture until it’s in lumps.

Sprinkle over apples, and bake 30 minutes.  Let sit 15 minutes, then slice and plate.

Heat caramel sauce until bubbling.  Put scoop of vanilla ice cream on crisp, then sauce top.  Serves 6-8.

When everything is said and done, I’m pretty lucky.  My husband may not recite sonnets below my balcony, but I’m no Juliet.

Yeah, this ain’t us.

And besides, we don’t have a balcony.

Thanks for your time.

Fee day-o come and I want to eat some

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In my daydreams, I’m glamorous and alluring.  Late at night, after an exclusive party, my driver brings me home to my large tastefully-decorated apartment in a luxury building in Art Deco City.

There, still attired in slinky velvet and expensive shoes, I whip up an intimate late supper for my gentleman friend Cary Grant and myself.

This may look like Greta Garbo, but it’s me I tells ya!

In the real world though, money can be tight, and Petey and I need some grub to fill our bellies.  So I still make dinner for two but clothed in a sweat suit and my fuzzy Wigwam socks.

But in both realities, it’s the same dish; a fideo (fid-ay-oh) frittata.  It’s an Italian open-faced omelet.  They’re usually studded with potatoes.  This one isn’t.  This one’s flecked with fideo.

Fideo is the Spanish word for noodle.  This variety is about 2 inches long, and the width of angel hair pasta.  The La Moderna brand is widely available in the Latin section of most grocery stores.  It’s also usually very cheap—like 2 or 3 bags for a dollar cheap.It’s traditionally used in a Mexican soup.  The fideo cooking process though, is not the normal noodle soup method of just tossing it raw into pot of soup.  The secret is in the toasting.

Oil is added to a skillet, and the fideo is gently tossed until brown and nutty.  In my frittata, after rendering the bacon, I pour out all the fat, but don’t wipe the pan, and what little bit of bacon grease left is what I use.

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Toasted fideo–it’s worth the effort in the finished product.

It’s the height of folly to employ neglect or abandonment during the toasting portion of the program.  It only takes 5-7 minutes, and even I; impatience incarnate, can manage that.

Getting all your fillings cooked off and out of the way will make the assembly and cooking a breeze whether you’re just in from a late night, or it’s simply time for dinner.   I make my fillings early in the day and stash ‘em in the fridge until it’s time to cook.  You can even do them the day before.  Then in less than 15 minutes you could be sitting down to a meal.

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Tossing and coating.

This frittata can be eaten with toast and a fruit salad for breakfast, or some mixed greens, crusty bread, and a glass of dry white for supper.  The other night I served it with some herb-roasted grape tomatoes (and glasses of sun tea).

Fideo Frittata

3 cups broccoli, cut into small florets and blanched until just tender

1/2 small onion, chopped

2 cups mushrooms sliced

2 tablespoons sliced sun-dried tomatoes in oil

2 slices bacon

3/4 cups raw fideo

2 cups chicken stock

6 eggs, well-beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper

1/3 cup mozzarella cheese, cubed or coarsely shredded

3/4 cup Marsala

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

Salt and pepper

Cut bacon into 1/2 inch strips, and cook until brown and crispy in heat-proof non-stick skillet.  Remove and place on paper towels.  Discard oil, but don’t wipe out pan.

Put fideo in same pan, and stirring constantly, sauté until pasta has turned amber.  Pour chicken stock into skillet and cook pasta until tender, about 5 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

In same skillet, add olive oil, and cook mushrooms and onions until the edges have begun to crisp and caramelize.  Deglaze pan with Marsala and cook until the liquid has cooked out.

 At this point, you can stop, store everything, and finish later.

Preheat oven to 375.

Heat pan, and melt butter.  Add all the veggies and fideo and toss to coat.  Pour in egg, jiggling so it’s evenly distributed.  Scatter mozzarella and bacon over the top.  Cook for a couple of minutes, ’til bottom is set.

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After assembly, before the oven.

Place in oven and cook for 8-10 minutes.  Remove from oven when middle is just set (check by cutting small slit in center), cheese is melted, and bacon has begun to sizzle.  Don’t let it get brown.

Slice and serve.  Serves 2- 4.

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Dinner elegante!

When sliced and plated with a crispy, bright salad, my fideo frittata looks pretty fancy (even though in my real life the closest I get to sophistication is watching BBC America while wearing pants).

Thanks for your time.

Nuts to you

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The long awaited successful batch of roasted garbanzo beans.

The long awaited successful batch of roasted garbanzo beans.

First, let me start by saying that I am cognizant of the fact that neither peanuts nor chick peas are nuts.

Both are legumes, but they possess a certain nutty quality.  And not just because they think Jaws 2 was the better than the original and sandals with socks are a good look.

Yeah…not so much.

The chickpeas were the toughest, taking the most tinkering.  I’d made them (badly) in the past and was not impressed.  I thought they were just another healthy food that folks had convinced themselves were tasty, so they would munch on them, and not the potato chips.

But when I finally got a batch in which most were correctly roasted, I understood.  They are uber-crunchy (Petey has never actually tried them, because to him, they sound “too” crunchy—not even sure what that is), and flavored with lots of lemon, garlic, and Puerto Rican spices.

The goal when cooking is to roast them until all the moisture is gone, but they aren’t burned.  Which isn’t as easy as you’d think.  I tried lots of different combinations of heat and time, re-baked ones that weren’t done, and tossed many that were blackened nuggets of despair.

Last week, I finally cracked the code.  They take two hours in the oven, but when they’re finished the entire batch is cooked to uniform doneness.

My recipe produces a citrusy, garlic-y result.  But please, flavor them any way you like.  Go Chinese with toasted sesame oil and five spice powder.  Do a spicy Southwest version with cayenne, paprika, and chili powder.  Or make them Jamaican with some jerk spice.  That’s why making your own is so darn satisfying; you’re the boss of your own chick peas.

Trial and error roasted garbanzos

1 15 ½ ounce can chick peas

1 tablespoon garlic oil

Juice of ½ lemon

2 teaspoons Goya bitter orange adobo

Preheat oven to 325.  Drain and rinse beans.  Put into sturdy, dark, 9 inch round, or square metal pan.  Drizzle on oil and juice, sprinkle on spice.  Roll around to evenly coat and put in single layer.  Bake 30 minutes, then remove from oven and roll around and toss.  Do this every 30 minutes for a total of 1 ½ hours.  Then give them one last jiggle, turn off oven and let sit inside, undisturbed, for 30 more minutes.  Makes 1 ½-2 cups.

When I worked for Bosco, we had a customer who was a caterer and each year at Christmas would bring us homemade Buckeyes.  For the uninitiated, they are delicious little peanut butter balls coated with chocolate.  They are to Reese’s cups what steak is to a Mickey D’s quarter pounder–they both come from a cow, but that’s where the similarity ends.

I often give these as gifts.  I make up the balls, and then freeze.  When I need some, I just coat them with the chocolate, without even thawing them.  Use a toothpick to dunk them, then smooth out the little hole you’ve made.  The wax keeps the chocolate glossy, but you won’t taste it.

Buckeyes

5 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 c. peanut butter

1/2 lb. (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 teaspoon salt

Caviar from 1 vanilla bean

½ bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ bag milk chocolate chips

About 1/3 cup canning paraffin wax, finely chopped

Blend butter, peanut butter and vanilla. Add sugar and beat to dough-like consistency. Form into balls with small scoop and chill or freeze. Melt chocolates and wax in microwave on 20 second intervals, stirring after each, until almost fully melted.  Then stir until completely smooth. Double-dip balls in chocolate, leaving circle of peanut butter showing.  Makes about 6 dozen.

My last recipe is crazy-simple.  But you won’t be able to keep your hands out of these pecans.

Obsessive-compulsive Pecans

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in skillet on medium.  Add 2 cups whole, shelled pecans.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Stir constantly until they’re lightly browned and smell nutty.  Drain on paper towels.

So here you have it.  Three recipes that are perfect to put out for visitors, or give as gifts.

And, if somebody tells you to go nuts, you can say, “Don’t mind if I do.”

Thanks for your time.

General Delivery, North Pole

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Dear Santa Claus,

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve written to you.  I think the last thing I asked you for was a Donny Osmond cassette and a Malibu Skipper doll.

Skipper and Donny-it's Sophie's choice to pick only one.

Skipper and Donny-it’s Sophie’s choice to pick only one.

I decided to send you a letter this year because you’re magic.  And to happen, most of my list needs a healthy dose of magic.

Last year when Petey was in the hospital, I would often stop at Panera Bread for dinner.

The order always consisted of the same two items; broccoli cheddar soup, and their spinach power salad.  The super-delicious salad was baby spinach, marinated mushrooms, crispy onion rings, and hard-boiled egg.  It came with a Vidalia onion dressing, and an entire large salad was only about fourteen calories (I may be exaggerating a touch here).

But for some reason, this spring, they dropped it from the menu.

Santa, please make them bring it back.  I’ve written a few emails to the company, but they haven’t worked. So I’m turning to a higher authority; you, to make this happen.

Tanya, Konrad, and the folks at Daisy Cakes (401 Foster St, Durham) make the best whoopee pies I’ve ever eaten.  The first time I tried one, it was so good, I almost cried.  But, they don’t have them very often.  So I would like for the chocolate/salted caramel version to be waiting for me every time I visit.

After hoping and wishing for many years, Durham is getting a Krispy Kreme.  Thank you very much.  In addition to this cathedral of crullers, Durham desperately needs a Sonic drive-in.  And they should put their steak sandwich back on the menu.

I would really like it if you could make clementines available year-round and take all the calories out of brie.  Put a Nana Taco much closer to my house, and give Locopops an ice cream truck that comes to my neighborhood every day fully stocked with blueberry/buttermilk pops.

Vaguely Reminiscent (728 9th St, Durham) is one of my favorite stores.  Owner Carol Anderson stocks the perfect merchandise for our funky little Bull City, including lots of distinctive, uncommon kitchen gadgets.  And the clothes, shoes, and accessories are just my style.  So, I’d like a $10,000.00 gift certificate, and a social life befitting all the fashionable raiment I will them own.

When you visit my house you’ll notice I’ve left you saltines.  I’d like to give you some of my mom’s improbably scrumptious frosted sugar cookies, but I only have a very limited amount, so can’t (won’t) share.  But I will give you the recipe, because, as they say, “If you teach an enchanted, immortal holiday figure to fish…”

Mom’s Christmas cookies

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1 ½ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup sugar

½ cup butter flavored Crisco

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift dry ingredients into bowl.  With mixer, cut in shortening until it resembles coarse meal.  Blend in egg, milk, and vanilla.

Roll out to 1/8 inch, and cut into shapes.

Bake on parchment lined cookie sheet for 6-8 minutes or until golden.  Remove to cooling rack.

Frost cookies when they are completely cooled.  Makes about 1 ½ dozen.

Mom’s Frosting

1 box powdered sugar (equal to 3 ¾ cups unsifted)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 scant teaspoon cream of tartar

1/3 cup butter-flavored Crisco

1 egg white

1/4 cup of water (or less)

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

For decorating: colored sugars and jimmies

Dump all ingredients, except water, into mixer. Beat ingredients at low until it starts to come together.  Put the water in at this point, so you can judge just how much to use. Beat until it is creamy and fluffy. Dye it festive colors, and very heavily frost each cookie, then sprinkle with colored sugar or jimmies.

One last thing.  I’d love to win the lottery, but Petey says I can’t win it, if I’m not in it.  The whole thing is very confusing to me, and because of that, I don’t play.

So, I’d appreciate it if you could slip a winning ticket into my stocking.

Thanks for your time, Santa,

Love Debbie.

A Kernel of Truth

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Originally published in the Herald-Sun 12/19/2012.

At our house, we are huge fans of carby comfort food.

We have a repertoire of dishes, everything from blue box mac, to an invented dish we call a ‘pasta toss’ (pasta, usually with sautéed veg and lots of lemon and garlic).

When Petey is saving lives at Duke, my baby and I dine alone.  On those nights we love nothing better than to get into our jimmies, and hop onto the couch with a couple of plates of steamy noodle goodness.  Then we dine, while watching a cinematic classic like, “Super Lobster Versus Mega Kitten”.

One night, prowling the Food Network website, I came upon a picture of a pasta dish with corn and green onions.

It looked fresh and light, yet luxurious.  Crazy gorgeous.  It made my stomach rumble.

I copy/pasted the illustration, and emailed it to The Kid, who was ensconced upstairs in the fortress of solitude, with various beeping and blinking devices.

It was given a thumb’s up.  We decided to create our own corn and pasta dish.

We immediately started making plans.

For pasta, we decided on parpadelle.  It’s as long as spaghetti, but as wide as an egg noodle.  The good stuff is as silky as a French nightgown.  It’s eggy and yummy.

For flavoring and fat in which to saute, we decided to go with pancetta.  It’s Italian.  They make it with pork belly, which also makes our American bacon.  It’s cured and rolled. But unlike bacon, which is smoked, pancetta is never smoked, but flavored with peppercorns and other herbs and spices, like rosemary and juniper berries.

Although I am an onion lover, my child is not, so instead of green onions for our dish, we would stir in a handful of fresh chopped parsley.  This would give us both color and fresh bright flavor.

As for our star of the show, corn, a trip to the farmers’ market presented us with a myriad of choices.  We settled on some beautiful sweet juicy ears still in their pale green silky robes.

Some stuff about fresh corn:

As soon as the ear leaves the stalk, the sugars in those sweet kernels start converting to starch.  In two days, about 80% of the sugar has mutated.  So, only buy fresh corn on the day you will use it.  And don’t buy it if it’s been languishing at the grocery store for days. The way to get the tastiest corn is to get freshly picked.

Otherwise, buy frozen.

Don’t be ashamed to be seen in the freezer aisle.  IQF, or individually quick frozen vegetables is the way most veg are prepared these days.  They’re cleaned and frozen as quickly as possible, sometimes within minutes, in buildings just feet from the fields in which they grew.  I promise they will be fresher than the sad, middle-aged specimens declining in your supermarket veggy department.

To shuck corn, quicker and cleaner; drop each ear into boiling water for a count of fifteen.  This will make the silk practically jump off the corn.  To completely eliminate the mess and bother, make the kids do it–outside.

To get the kernels off the cob, just hold the cob upright on a cutting board, and cut down with a sharp knife, turn it, and repeat.  After kernels are removed, scrape down the cob with the back of your knife, to get the juice.

Some folks swear by resting the cob on the opening of an upright bundt pan.  The theory is all the stuff goes only into the pan.  It never works for me.  It is a messy job, no getting around it.  I suggest a drop cloth, and a shower after.

Once we had our components, we set about making our newest pasta toss.  It was a blast conspiring together to create this new recipe.

Happily, all the fevered intrigue paid off.  It’s the perfect, yummy plate to devour while watching “Grizzlygator versus Colossal Hedgehog 2”.  This time I hear it’s personal.

Summer Corn & Parpadelle

Serves four as a side dish, or two as a main.

1 lb parpadelle

¼ lb thick sliced pancetta, cut into cubes

2 cloves garlic, peeled, and smashed, or thickly sliced

6 ears fresh corn, cut from cob (or 12-16 ounces frozen shoe peg, if fresh is not available)

1 shallot, diced

1/3 cup white wine

1 cup chicken stock

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

2 T butter

1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Salt and pepper

Set a very large pot with heavily salted water on to boil.  When it boils, add pasta and cook ‘til al dente. 

In a large heavy skillet, cook pancetta until completely browned on medium-low, and remove from pan. Turn up to medium, and put garlic in.  Cook until lightly golden and fragrant.  Remove and discard. 

Put shallots into skillet, and cook until softened and lightly translucent.  Add corn with juice.  Cook until the liquid is almost gone, and add wine, and stir to coat everything.  When wine has evaporated, add chicken stock, and turn up to medium-high. 

Let it bubble away to thicken, while paprpadelle is cooking.  When the consistency is right, turn off heat, and stir in cheese and butter (called mounting).

When the noodles are done, don’t strain them, remove from water with tongs or a large slotted spoon, and add directly to sauce.  Add parsley, and toss everything together.  If the sauce is too stiff, add a little pasta water to thin it.

Check for seasoning, plate, scatter top with pancetta bits, and serve. 

The Kid called this past weekend, and told me next week’ll be finals for food and wine compatibility class.  The directive is a dish that pairs well with a chardonnay.

Guess what recipe my child is choosing to make for the exam?

Thanks for your time.