zen.org Communal Weblog

A few days ago I was hacking, I had these nice eggs from a local farm and I wanted them boiled. For some reason M. F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf popped in my mind, I went to the attic and found the book I had not seen in years. In the chapter How Not to Boil an Egg I found the recipe:

…cover the egg with cold water in a little pan. Heat it briskly, and as soon as it begins to bubble, the egg is done. It will be tenderer then when started in hot water, which of course makes the part nearest the shell cook immediately, instead of heating the whole thing gently.

I actually boiled five eggs, so I let in go until it started boiling. The eggs where perfect. That book is going to stay in the kitchen.

Tonight’s dinner:

1 125g package cubed bacon (pancetta?)
5 cubes frozen spinach, thawed
1/2 pkg spaghetti
4 oz soy cream cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
white wine
salt and pepper

Cook pasta according to package directions. While cooking:

In a non-stick skillet (we use our well-seasoned cast iron one), cook bacon to desired doneness and remove to bowl. Do not drain skillet! Add spinach and garlic to bowl, toss together. and remove to separate bowl/plate. To warm skillet, add cream cheese, and a couple spashes white wine. Cook, stirring, to sauce consistency. Add cream cheese mixture to drained pasta in a large pot, toss together, then add bacon and spinach and combine with pasta. Serve.

Barbara Kafka has a blog! WHOO HOO.

Getting back into the swing of food blogging…

Today’s dinner: sausages and peppers over ciabatta bread.

The sausages were from Jane Russell sausages, their Italian ones. We get them from the market in Dun Laoghaire on Sundays, where they have a stall. These sausages are heavenly. Different from Italian sausages in the US, not as spicy, but the flavor is more authentic. And there is almost no fat coming off these, compared to the US ones.

Jane’s sausages work really well with the recipe from Barbara Kafka’s book, Microwave Gourmet. This book, given to me by my mom, is gold, GOLD I TELL YOU. I was one of the naysayers, the ones who say “What? Microwaves are for things other than defrosting and popcorn?” Then this book changed my life. Leek and potato soup in under a half hour. Chicken paprikas that is to. die. for. I cannot recommend this book highly enough; this and Vegan Planet and you’re set.

Erm, back to the recipe. Chop up some sausages, cook in the micro. Add some peppers, some onion, some basil (okay, we used dried cause the basil we did have in the fridge was *manky*. I forgot to pull an Alton on it and wash and wrap in damp paper towels). Now, you’re supposed to add some marinara sauce to it and then cook it a bit more. But no toms for this house. So we added 4 garlic cloves, some oregano and some olive oil. Served up over artisan ciabatta (also gotten at the market on Sunday), it was perfect for this nasty, rainy, windy day.

Today’s adventure: make dinner.

Sounds easy. Wasn’t. Cause as I sit in my comfy couch this afternoon, I see happy Vera walking by. She pops in, says, “I’m going to the doctor to see if I need stitches.” She *sliced* her thumb on a ham tin. I mean sliced (dude, if you’re squeamish, please don’t look. I warned you). Like, I’m never using a key to open any of those silly kinds of cans ever. She didn’t believe that she needed company, but I convinced her otherwise. Thank god, too, cause we were there for like 2 hours waiting. Then they finally saw her, had her put her finger under the taps, and then *glued* it shut. GLUED. /shakes head. I had that in the back room….we coulda avoided the 2 hour wait!

So after she let me to go Tesco to get the few things I needed for dinner. Basically leeks, since it’s chicken and sweet leek pie. Now, this is a Jamie Oliver recipe, and it’s one we’ve done before (tho no comments written in the book, so that should worry me…), but it takes forever. First you have to skin and debone the chicken legs (thank you for teaching me technique, Alton Brown), then cut up the leeks, carrots and prep the thyme. (Does anyone else get thyme all over the place when they strip the leaves? I got some in my hair.) Then cook for 15 minutes, add wine (we used apple juice instead, as I had no vino), water and soymilk, and boom. Stir, and bubble for 45 minutes. Then put in pie dish and then top with puff pastry.

Sounds easy. Can take a while. Was it good? Ummmmmmmmm….yeah. Filling. Hopefully the puff pastry will last til lunch tomorrow. We’re having a massive leftover lunch, since almost every plastic container (and that’s saying a lot) is being used right now.

P decided that he wanted to make something from the leftover puff pastry. So we did. All together now…awwwwwwwwwww.

[tags]altonbrown, cooking, jamieoliver, vera, p[/tags]

Just read this in a newsletter that I get. I can’t be the only one who sees this, can I?

Parents Against Junk Food (our effort to improve school lunches around
the country) is being launched April 1. The Web site address will be
www.parentsagainstjunkfood.org . The site will offer a variety of ways
for you to get involved (including contacting your representatives in
Congress), and we will be asking you to send us letters, photos, and
information on the lunches in your local schools. Please help!

Down in the test kitchen, the editors of our sister publication,
Cook’s Country, just came up with a great recipe for oven-fried onion
rings using ground potato chips for a coating and the heat of the oven
(no frying required) to do the cooking. Click here for the recipe.

[tags]cooking, cooksillustrated, junkfood, lunch, irishblogs[/tags]

As I try to make sure to do more blogging regarding food, I thought I’d list what we ate today…

For lunch, our classic roasted red pepper and carrot soup. Great for a yukky day like today, esp when P and I both have colds and Magda thinks she’s getting one (from us, of course). Simple and fast, that soup. It’s not actually ours, it’s from Avoca, but one of our favorites, for all year round.

Dinner was a Jamie Oliver recipe, from Happy Days, his third book. I don’t remember the actual name of it, but it was salmon fillets, baby beetroot, watercress and a creamy horseradish sauce. Oh YUM. I didn’t think that beets and creamy horseradish would go well, but they doooooo.

I’m trying to suck down as much hot lemon and honey as I can…thank heavens I love honey and lemon :-).

So, I did my turkey today. We did one for Thanksgiving (finally found one at Lidl), which was deeeeelicious. And not just cause I brined it. But the turk itself was…I think B used the word rich. Rich flavor. Compared to today’s turkey (from Tesco), it was. The Lidl turkey was by far better. Amazing.

Yes, I did a turkey today. I roasted one. It’s done. Freezing it in zip top bags while dunked in chicken broth. That way, even tho we’re going to an aunt’s house for Christmas, we’ll have turkey whenever we need it (and for the killer Turkey Noodle Soup recipe that we have). Plus we needed the room in the fridge. 🙂

P wants to make sugar cookies also. I keep forgetting to make the dough, since it needs to chill for a while before you roll it out. I did find a good vegan recipe, but I just have to plan ahead. Plus we have some broken candy canes that P can have (and has been begging me for since we hung them up) that we can sprinkle on the cookies and I found some sprinkles on sale that would work. I still have powder food coloring that I’ll just toss with some sugar for other colors.

See, now, no one actually talks about this stuff. Most people just wave this off, but these are things that need to be pointed out. My only addition? Water water water. If I have a drink, all bets are off :-).

Edit…helps if I add the URL, eh? Enjoy the holidays without gaining weight

Dare I make a “The Accidental Cook” post? I’ll try it and see what pundits say.

As the autum starts to turn into winter, my CSA is starting to slow down. Like the first pickup, things are turning to mostly leafy greens, the first and last harvest of our farmer. I had too many leafy greens, extra lettuce, extra kale, extra mustard greens, and I think a few others, but not spinach. So, here is what I did…

I fried the mustard greens with some onions and green pepers. After a time, I added some water with a little vegetable broth. When that got to a boil I dumped in some potatoes, when they got soft in my my miscellaneous leafy greens. In goes a little salt and pepper, purée. After a bit of boiling I had 余艾蕾 try a bit. She thought it tasted, and looked a bit, like saag.

Now, when I started my blogging, one of my hopes was to be a food diary. This entry is for that, the very first step in the evolution of what might be a great recipe, what my online pages was first meant to prodce. The problem is I don’t think I will have to many leafy greens again until last next spring, when my CSA starts up again. Hopefully I will remember this post and add a followup.

I was going to try to change my leaf soup to Saag Seitan. When I put in the broth and water I was thinking soup, and put in the quantity for soup. I spent a half hour trying to boil it down but I got hungry and had Leaf Soup with Seitan, after adding some butter and corn starch. It was good, with a little more foresight it could of been great.