Miscellaneous

I’m often asked about how to involve kids in the kitchen. I have a few easy examples (such as having them wash green beans, measure dry ingredients, or, even, have fun with frozen peas at age two-and-a-half), and the other day I learned a new method: prayer.

Let me explain. Last Friday, Santa Maria had to work and I took the day off from work to be at home with the kids, who were on vacation from school. Because I was going to be around the house all afternoon, and would have time to cook, I invited a few friends over for dinner. These friends of ours usually have a Shabbat dinner on Friday nights, so we asked them to move the ceremony to our place. They obliged, and we lit candles, they blessed the bread, and we honored the day of rest.

But before all that, I needed to get the food on the table. Perhaps because we were going to have Yahweh on our side, something remarkable happened that afternoon: Nina and Pinta came to my rescue in the kitchen. I thought I had blocked out enough time, but as the hour of our friends’ arrival approached, it was clear that I was in trouble. Long ago, I taught Nina an old restaurant term for falling behind in the kitchen, and she trotted it out. “You’re in the weeds, dad,” she said. Indeed, I was.

The meal was tacos, a simple one, at least on paper, and one that I had made many times before. This time around, I was making steak tacos, a relatively new variation on my recipe, but that change is not what got me into trouble. The trouble came in scaling up the recipe for seven people. I kept saying it was a simple meal, and Nina kept correcting me. “It’s not simple,” she said. And as I looked at the mountain of ingredients on the counter in front of me, I had to agree.

Pinta grated the cheese for two trays of nachos, and Nina grated bowls of cheese for the table. Pinta mashed the avocado for the guacamole, and Nina set the table with seven settings. I diced a thousand-and-one cherry tomatoes (the only kind half ripe in the middle of winter), and washed and chopped the cilantro. We were busy for about an hour, working side by side, and it was great fun.

These tacos can be made with pork, fish, black beans, and steak. The steak I like to cook for it is grass-fed Sirloin Tip, an old favorite. The ones I buy are very thin, and cook at about a minute or two a side. The trick is to get the cast-iron pan as hot as you can, and go for a good char. Don't overcook it, and slice it as thin as you can for the tacos

We assembled all the food on the table—two trays of beef, a bowl of black beans (my friend is watching his diet; I’m watching my wallet), two bowls of grated cheddar cheese, two bowls of fresh salsa, two bowls of chimichurri sauce*, two trays of nachos, a platter of warmed corn tortillas, and a huge bowl of salad (if I was a better blogger, I’d have a whole bunch of photos to show, but as it is, I’m a better cook and eater than food photographer). It was the best Shabbat dinner I’ve ever had (and don’t discount that because it was the only Shabbat dinner I’ve ever had). Everyone hung out after dinner and we stayed up late watching Mikaela Shiffrin hang on to make history as the youngest Olympic Women’s Slalom Champion. It was a night for the record books. Here's how to have a gold-medal taco night yourself. 

I use Grammarly for proofreading because, well, because every time I have a typo on this blog I cry
uncontrollably. I don’t, of course, but Grammarly offered me a $200 Amazon gift
card to start my post with that line, and they asked me to come up with a funny
reason. Comedy, of course, is tragedy plus time, and, I thought, if I turned a
typo into something tragic, it might be funny by the time you read it.

What is really tragic, though, is that I feel like I’m in
the culinary version of “Groundhog Day.” I know I’m not alone in this. By
definition, a parent who cooks is going to be a parent who gets stuck
repeatedly cooking the most popular dishes. Over the weekend, I was talking to one
of the dads I know through Nina's soccer. He cooks black beans, roasted chicken, a
meat and tomato sauce every single week. I call this a cycle of recipe
dependency—that is, we get addicted to the things that are easy and that our kids
will eat.

It’s not exactly a depressing situation—we are, after all,
eating well (guess what's back in season!)—but I miss the feeling of seeking out and succeeding at new dishes.
It reminds me of Ishmael from “Moby-Dick,” who starts the novel by saying:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of
every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand
of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats
off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

I’m not going to head out to sea (who would cook for Nina,
Pinta, and Santa Maria?), but I do like to explore my cookbook shelf.
 “The New Food Lover’s Companion,”
one of my favorite food books of all time, was recently updated. It is a
pocket-sized volume (that is, if your pocket is a bit large—this is a small but
thick book), organized alphabetically, that defines everything from “aamsul” (a
kiwi-sized fruit from western India,) to “zwieback (the twice-baked toast).”

It covers the basics with precision, observing that a hare
is “a larger relative of the rabbit,” and it “can weigh as much as 12 to 14
pounds, compared to a rabbit at about 5 pounds.”

It offers tasty tidbits about the origins of dishes,
pointing out that the name for “jambalaya” is thought to derive “from the
French jambon, meaning ‘ham,’ the main ingredient in many of the first
jambalayas.”

The book gets into folklore, noting that “in parts of Europe
it’s believed that rubbing the skin with eel oil will cause a person to see
fairies.”

And a good sense of humor is often present—about “Glühwein,”
it observes that the name of the German mulled wine translates as “glow wine,”
and “is so named not only because it’s hot, but because it gives those who
drink more than one or two a definite glow.”

The book is very handy for settling arguments (in a
pre-Internet kind of way) and for satisfying curiosities about odd foodstuffs.
Plus, it’s very fun to read, and good for getting out of a rut.

Pinta set the table the other night. She drew flowers and a
butterfly on the napkins and put out place cards. It looked very nice, and when
she said to me, “Dad, can I get a pitcher?” I heard the sentence,“Dad, can I
get a picture,” a liability of being a food blogger. When I reached for my
camera, she said, “No a water pitcher!”

So, if your kids are ever looking for something to do before
dinner, have them set the table. Give them the knives and forks and napkins,
but don’t forget the markers. 

As a parent, I often feel like the French in 1940—that is
well prepared for the last war and losing the current one. Not that parenting
is a battle, but, unlike the Maginot Line, the analogy still holds. I’m good at
fixing the things of the past, yet I tend to lose track of what is coming next. For example, I spend money on their shoes while failing to sock
some away for their college expenses.

The same mentality, apparently, holds with blogging. A few
weeks ago, when the weather was warm, I meant to write about my latest
grilling feat—whole porgies. But I got distracted, and now it is fall. Still,
there are going to be a few nice weekends coming up (I personally guarantee
it!) and you may yet have time to enjoy this quick (and fairly easy) outdoor
treat.

Whole porgies have a few big advantages: they’re cheap and
incredibly delicious (when they are fresh, at least) and they cook quickly. One
disadvantage is that they are bony fish, but if you can get past that, you’ll
be fine.

If you can, have your fishmonger clean them for you. If that’s
not an option, you can scale them without making a mess by using the side of
the fork or bread knife, while holding the fish inside a brown-paper bag. Then
you’ll need to slice up the belly, pull out the guts and gills, and give it a
good rinse.

Rub the sides of the fish with olive oil, and slice the fish
about three times on each side. Stuff the slits with fresh thyme,
and throw some more of the herb in the belly for good measure.

Get a good fire going (or turn on your gas grill and heat
the rack) and grill the fish about three minutes on each side. That’s all there
is to it. Really, they’re easier to grill than to find the time to write about.
Enjoy!

A friend recently lent us her condo on Nantucket, and we
spent a week there with my mother, bicycling around and enjoying the
beach. Nantucket is a stunning and fascinating place. The only thing that tops
the natural beauty of its rolling fields and pristine beaches is the outrageous
displays of wealth by its visitors. Every other car is a Range Rover, houses
list for 14 million dollars, and people are dressed to the nines at all times.
It was a bit disorienting, until Santa Maria pointed out one thing that unified
and equalized all people on the island—the local Stop & Shop. Everywhere
you went, you’d see folks—rich folks, poor folks, and in-between folks—carrying
paper bags with the store’s logo. 

At the Stop & Shop, I picked up some Sirloin Tip Strips, an
inexpensive, sufficiently fatty and delicious cut of beef that I would highly
recommend. As it turns out, “Sirloin Tip” is a New England name.  Outside the region you might have to
ask for faux hanger or bavette. According to this great
article in Serious Eats, it’s “the bottom sirloin butt—the same general region
where the tri-tip comes from.” The tips I had were cut into strips, also a New
England custom, and I found that made them easier to cook. Here's how I did it:

I salted them heavily and laid them out on the grill.

Gave them about two
minutes a side, until they were charred nicely and 125 degrees in the thick parts.

fingers reaching for a taste before dinner!

When we went to the shore two weeks ago, I naturally took charge of the cooking. I also recognized my responsibility to my wife, children, mother, brother’s family, (and myself) to take care of other vacation needs. And I mean basic vacation needs. One need: to relax and have a good time.

Strange as it may seem, it has been harder in the past for me to chill out than to feed a dozen people. But part of the human condition is the ability to adapt, so I did a few things differently this year. I made Thich Nhat Hanh not Gordon Ramsay my guide in the kitchen, and instead of yelling, I changed my approach.

For example, I made a mystery slow-roasted pork shoulder. The mystery was what was in the rub. For last year’s trip to the beach I had prepared a spice rub for two pork shoulders. That year, I only made one, and, so, I had a perfectly mixed batch of spices left over in my cupboard. I grabbed that bag while packing, and thought: one meal ready!

This year, the night before I wanted to eat, I slathered that rub over a pair of smallish organic pork shoulders and–in keeping with my desire to help myself and others by relaxing and enjoying the moment–the next day I put the meat in a 250 degree oven at 10:00 in the morning, and I went swimming. I walked on the beach. I drew some pictures. I took a nap. I laughed with my girls. Then, at the end of the day, at 6:00, I took the meat out of the oven and we made pork tacos. All it needed was a touch of lime and it was perfect. The meat was falling-apart tender, and everything was easy and good. We were happy.

Easiest Pork Shoulder Ever

• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons mild chili powder, like ancho or New Mexico
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 or 2 pork shoulder, totaling about 6 pounds
• 3 or 4 limes, cut into pieces

The night before eating, rub the pork with the spices.

The morning of the meal, heat an oven to 250 degrees, and place the meat on a foil-lined roasting pan that has a lip or raised edge.

Cook the meat for eight hours, until it is super tender.

To serve, cut the meat (it should fall apart) and eat with soft-corn tortillas and a touch of lime juice.

As I
mentioned last week, I have recently partnered with Dove Chocolate, to become
part of its TasteMakers program, which means I’ve developed a few recipes for
them. To be precise, that means I’ve teamed up with Santa Maria, who is much
better working with chocolate (there’s a reason you’ve never seen me write here
about my experiments making mole sauce: trust me, you wouldn’t want what I came
up with).

Here is her latest creation: Sunshine Muffins, which she cooked up a
few weeks ago, hence her suggestion for making them on a weekend. Now, I know it’s probably a Monday morning when you’re looking at this but it’s not as if you were about
to walk away from your computer screen and make them this second, right? Even
though it is Monday, it’s okay to dream a little bit:

What is the
best way to welcome the weekend?  Warm muffins! That mix the delicious
aromas of dark chocolate and tangy oranges.  If you like to make freshly
squeezed orange juice, just make a little bit extra and you'll be well on your
way to making sunshine muffins.

These
remind me of Spain, the land of Valencia oranges, very sweet with a lovely
tartness at the same time.  You can use other oranges too.  This
recipe is an adaptation of one made by a friend, Tamara, with whom I fell out
of touch during my tumultuous twenties.  I hope she is well and still
enjoying these tasty treats!

Sunshine
Muffins

• 2 medium
  Valencia oranges (wash and dry thoroughly) to make 2 Tablespoons grated orange
  peel and ½ cup fresh orange juice
• 2 – 3 oz.
  Dove dark chocolate bars (total 6.60 oz. dark chocolate)
• 2/3 cup
  sugar
• ½ cup
  butter (1 stick) softened at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup plain
  yogurt
• 1 t baking
  powder
• ½ t baking
  soda
• 2 cups
  flour

 

Preheat
oven to 375 degrees.  Prep time –
about 10 minutes. 

Grease
muffin cups with butter (recipe will make 12 large muffins). 

Coarsely
chop chocolate.  Set aside.

Beat sugar
and butter til pale and fluffy. 

Beat in
eggs. 

Add orange
peel. 

Add yogurt,
juice, baking powder and baking soda.  

Mix well (batter
will be liquid-y). 

Sprinkle
flour, then chocolate over the batter.  

Fold
gently, just enough to blend the flour. 

Pour into
the muffin cups. 

Bake 15-20
minutes or until springy to the touch.

 

Makes: 12
large muffins

I received many great responses to the “How Do You Use Mint?” giveaway of Dove Chocolate, and my favorite came from Anne in State College,
Pennsylvania. She makes a Red, White and Blue Fruit Salad, which is doubly
fitting because the contest was timed for Independence Day. As she said in her
email to me, “You should have had it for the 4^th!”

She’s right. It sounds delicious, and though it is patriotic
in appearance, it looks good for any hot summer day. Enjoy, and thanks to
everyone who replied with tips about using mint.

Red, White and Blue Fruit Salad

Makes 14 one cup servings

•  8 cups cubed
  seedless watermelon
•  6 cups
  blueberries
• 6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• 3 tablespoons orange juice
• 3 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons light olive oil
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 bunch mint, plus extra for garnishing

Combine the watermelon, blueberries and feta in a large
bowl.  Mix together the orange
juice, lime juice, olive oil and honey, stirring to dissolve the honey.  Remove the leaves from the mint stems
and chop the leaves. Pour the dressing over the fruit and cheese, add the mint
and toss together.  Serve very
cold, garnished with extra mint leaves. 

Guess what? Work and other things didn’t slow down at all
last week. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a bit of a luxury to get paid to
write, and I have two assignments due this week, which makes me feel doubly
fortunate. And one of the other things I had to do last week was to tour a
chocolate factory.  I’m not joking.
That’s my life at the moment, twisting up words and tasting chocolate.

I’ll have more on the chocolate-factory tour soon, I
promise, along with some treats for you all. In the meantime, I’ll get back to my
life’s work, which is not actually cooking for my family, but, rather, ever so
slowly wiping away the emotional fog of my relationships in the hope of
communicating better and seeing clearly what matters most. It’s not a linear
progression. Recently, Santa Maria left me a little note with the names of dishes
written on them. It started with script letters spelling out  “Chicken Tikka Masala,” and then went
onto list a slew of other dishes.

I first saw the list when I was trying to compile the weekly
shop list and the menu for the following week. It was about 10 p.m. on Friday,
which in parent time is the single-person’s equivalent of about 2 a.m., and I was
tired. I glanced at it, and, in light of all the things I knew I had to do
during the coming week, quickly discounted it. There was no way I’d have time
to make Chicken Tikka Masala, as much as I might like to eat it myself.

I didn’t completely disregard all the suggestions Santa
Maria had made. One of the things I did remembered from her list was “Beets.” I
thought of it when I was doing my weekly food shop at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday
morning. There in the produce aisle were some massive, lovely beets. I bought a
bunch and took them home.

This morning—while I was making pesto and quinoa salad for
the week and pancakes and bacon for breakfast—I decided to boil the beets, to
make a salad with mint later in the day. Beets and mint go together like
sunshine and the beach. They are just made for each other.

I had fun cooking the beets. When I took them out of the
water this morning, they looked quite odd. Pinta asked what those giant blobs
were, and I told her “octopus testicles.” “Ewwww,” she said, and then we all
laughed. I cooked the beets in the morning, and this evening I skinned one, diced
it, and combined it with a bit of fresh mint and a Dijon vinaigrette. It was a
perfect side dish. Every bite made me think of summer. Here's how it looked in the sunshine:

Beet and Mint Summer Salad

•  1-3 beets (depending on size and number of folks to feed), ends
  cut off and washed
• 1 fistful of fresh mint, chopped (about 2 tablespoons)
• Dijon Vinaigrette*

Submerge the beets in a large pot, and bring it to a boil.

Reduce to a simmer, and cook until a fork can slide easily
into the beet.

Remove from the water and let cool.

Once cool, slide the skin off with you fingers and give the
whole beet a rinse.

Cut the red flesh into small cubes.

Combine the beets, the mint, and the vinaigrette.

Enjoy.

*For the Dressing:

 

Combine the following:

• 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Note: these amounts are approximate, and this will probably
give you more dressing than you need. Keep any extra in a glass jar in the
fridge for as long as you might like.

Note: also, if you cook more beets than you need to use,
they will keep for a few days in the refrigerator. Don’t peel them until you
want to use them.

A week or so ago, before the Stay at Stove Dad household
became a breeding ground for noroviruses, rhinoviruses, and God knows what else
has been making us ill, we had some friends over for dinner. I remember those
halcyon days and sleep-filled nights with a reverence reserved for religious
feasts, despite the difficulties I had that afternoon in cooking the lamb.

I wanted to start that meal with a soup, and I had a
particular one in mind—my Alaskan Black-Cod Chowder—but there was some reason I
couldn’t make it. At this point, trying to recall what picayune problem
prevented me from doing so is akin to looking through a haze of battlefield
smoke and trying to read my adversary’s diary. It just can’t be done.

Whatever it was that kept me from the Alaskan Black-Cod
Chowder (an absence of leeks, I think it was), steered me right into something
new. For reasons of economy—I wanted to stretch that lamb so it lasted me into
the following week (these days, I eat leftovers for lunch, that is when I’m not
eating leftovers for dinner)—and I really needed to make a soup. So, I decided to
improvise.

Earlier this month, in the New York Times, Martha Rose
Shulman published a recipe for Winter Tomato Soup with Bulgur, and that’s
what I used as a base for my new soup. Her idea of putting bulgur in the soup
resonated with me, because it is something I do when I make my Turkish Lentil Bulgur Soup. In that recipe, the bulgur is browned before
the lentils and other ingredients are added, so that’s what I did when I made
my new soup. Browning the bulgur gives it a nutty, deep flavor. My mouth always starts to water as this step finishes up. It brings a real sweetness out, too.

If I could take an idea from my Turkish Lentil Bulgur Soup, surely,
I figured, I could take an idea from my Alaskan Black-Cod Chowder—namely, start with bacon (always a good idea, in any event). I
built a base with bacon and onions and sharpened it with a chili pepper. Then I browned the bulgur, added the tomatoes and
tossed in some fresh parsley and a bit of dried rosemary. The result was rich
and hearty, and it made a fine start to a fine meal.

Simple Tomato Bulgur Soup

• Olive oil
• 2 slices of bacon, diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 chili pepper
• 1/2 cup bulgur
• 2 to 4 garlic cloves, to taste, minced
• One 28-ounce can tomatoes, run through a blender (I use a
  hand one)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar*
• 5 cups water (more to taste)
• 1 tablespoon dried rosemary, or to taste
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• Salt to taste

Heat the olive oil in a heavy soup pot over medium heat and
add the onion, chili pepper, and bacon and cook, stirring often, until the onion is very soft
but not browned, at least ten minutes.

Add the bulgur and cook, stirring, until it is brown and
fragrant.

Add the garlic and cook, stirring, about another minute more.

Add the can of tomatoes, tomato paste and sugar and bring to a
simmer.

Cook, stirring often, until the tomatoes have cooked down
slightly, about 10 minutes.

Add the water and rosemary, and salt to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce
the heat, cover and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until the bulgur is soft and the
soup thick and fragrant.

Add pepper to taste and adjust salt.

*I don’t usually cook with sugar, but I was working off of
Shulman’s recipe, so I went with it. I think next time, I won’t include it.