Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Author: Tulip

Let’s Make Pie!

Heat is the enemy when you are making pie crust. If you want a good flaky crust, you need to keep it cold until you put it in the oven.

The recipe I use, which makes enough for a nine inch double crust or two single crusts, is as follows:

2 ½ C all purpose flour
2 sticks cold butter
1 T sugar
2 tsp salt
¼ C icy cold vodka
¼ C ice water

Instead of vodka you could use white or apple cider vinegar (chill it). Naptown Bill says he grandmother uses sparkling dry white wine or champagne in her pie crust. I may give that or sparkling water a try.

Mix the flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and toss with the flour.

Stick the bowl in the freezer. I also put the blade from my food processor in the freezer as well. After at least one half hour, I put the flour/butter mixture into the bowl of the food processor and give it a few pulses. Don’t over mix, you want the butter to remain in chunks.

Next add the quarter cup of vodka while pulsing the food processor.

(No! Don’t drink it! Put it in the dough.) I keep my vodka in the freezer, so it is ready to go. I keep a pitcher of water in the refrigerator and add ice cubes when I start making pie dough. Add the ice water, a tablespoon at a time until the dough starts to come together. It will still be pretty shaggy. The way to test if you have added enough water is to squeeze a handful. If it crumbles, you need to add a little more. If it breaks into big chunks, it is ready.

Cut a big piece of plastic wrap and dump the dough onto it. It won’t really seem like dough yet. That’s ok as long as you can form it into two discs – about six inches in diameter. Wrap each in plastic and put it in the refrigerator. You should still be able to see pieces of butter in the dough.

As it sits in the fridge, the flour will absorb the water and it will be less crumbly and shaggy.

I like to make pretty things, so when I saw the rose apple pie all over the internet, I had to give it a try. I don’t know who deserves the credit for inventing it. This one has an excellent tutorial for slicing the apples and making the rose. I didn’t really like the recipe though. So I added my own small touches.

If you want to do the rose design, follow the tutorial. Here are my tips and changes. You need about four medium apples. If they’re small, use five, if they’re big use three.

I increased the cinnamon and nutmeg to ½ teaspoon each and added ½ teaspoon of ground ginger and added to the sugar. Then I tossed the slices with the sugar mix and let it sit.

This lets the juice release and creates the liquid you will use for the caramel sauce.

While the apples are macerating, take one of your pie dough discs out of the fridge. Sprinkle a little flour on a cutting board and roll it out. Press hard when rolling because it will be stiff. You want to make as few passes as possible. Flip the dough every two or three passes and more flour as needed to keep it from sticking. When it’s rolled out big enough, use your pie plate as a guide and cut around it. Remember to leave plenty of room around it to account for the depth. Press the dough into the pie plate and dock it with a fork.

After the apple slices have sat for about ½ hour, you need to remove them from the liquid and squeeze the liquid out. I wear gloves for this and laying out the slices because it is ….sticky.

That’s also why I have no pictures of the process. (See the tutorial).

Preheat the oven to 375 now. It took me about five minutes more than the preheat time to lay out the apple slices. The tutorial I linked above says to overlap the ends of the slices. I think that makes the pie too ‘loose’, it creates gaps. I like my apple pie to be packed with apples. So, I put them end to end.

Start on the outside and just keep going until it is all filled in. Lastly, curl one slice and stick in the center. Cover the pie with foil and bake for about 40 minutes or until the apples are the texture you like. You can test it with a knife. Not only should the knife slide in easily, it should also slide out easily. Then bake uncovered for another 10 minutes until the crust and apples are golden. Look at the flaky crust!

While the pie is baking, make the caramel sauce with the reserved apple liquid. I added a tsp of vanilla and ¼ C of bourbon (No!, Don’t drink it! – honestly, you people.) Then reduce it to about half the volume. When it is almost done, the bubbles change. It becomes thicker and the bubbles are bigger and almost glossy.

At this point, turn off the heat and slowly pour in some cream. I am always a little nervous making caramel sauce because a work colleague de-gloved two fingers when he spilled some. He had to have two surgeries and it took months to recover. Caramel is no joke.

When you are ready to serve, pour caramel sauce over the pie.

August 19, 2018
Tulip’s Favorite Cookbooks

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Even though I rarely use recipes, I love them. They provide me with inspiration and ideas for combinations I may never have thought of on my own. I also love cookbooks, especially those that focus on techniques or a cooking philosophy. It’s not unusual to find me spending a Sunday afternoon curled up on the couch with the dog and a cookbook. Today, I’d like to recommend a few cookbooks that I turn to over and over.

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First is “An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace” by Tamar Adler. This isn’t your typical cookbook. She has modeled it after M.F.K. Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf” and it is thus more like a series of essays about how to eat. Each chapter is organized around a method or ingredient and her guiding philosophy shines through. I think her philosophy could be summed up as ‘Start and keep going.’ I just love her writing. It is beautiful and she really captures cooking – not just eating – as a sensual act. Take care with your cooking and plating and you will be satisfied with less because you have satisfied all your senses, not just taste.

Sprinkled through the chapters are recipes that illustrate the methods or use the ingredients she has just discussed. Reading her descriptions, you can almost taste the dishes. Her writing is reassuring as well. Yes, you’ll make mistakes. It will be okay, there are sections devoted to explaining how to save your mistakes. If your pork chop came out dry, it can be turned into hash. I wish I’d had this book years ago, but I’m not sure I would have truly appreciated it then.

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Growing up, vegetables were usually boiled until soggy and served as is. I hated them. Boiled vegetables can be wonderful (see Tamar Adler’s book) if treated correctly, but it took me years to get over my hatred of boiled vegetables. If you grew up like I did, then Susie Middleton’s “Fast, Fresh, & Green” may change your life. This book is all about how to cook vegetables so you want to eat them Each chapter is organized around a specific technique like roasting or sautéing. She gives you a base method/recipe and then several specific recipes as examples. Her Sautéed Sugar Snaps with Salami Crisps is wonderful. I sometimes make it with snow peas.

Snow Peas and Salami

Snow Peas and Salami Done

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The principle behind “Ratio” by Michael Ruhlman is that you don’t need a recipe as long as you understand the appropriate ratio behind the dish. He delves into the science of cooking more than Susie Middleton or Tamar Adler. The book is organized like a typical cookbook – Doughs and Batters, Sauces, Sausages, etc and carefully explains the science behind the ratio. This is the book that inspired me to start experimenting when baking and resulted in my Holy Mole brownies.

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Another book that investigates the science of cooking is “Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food” by Jeff Potter. I love this book because it, more than any other cookbook I’ve read, encourages you to experiment. Want to test the calibration of your oven, it explains how to use sugar to do so. Why are copper bowls good for making meringues? Potter explains. There are directions to make your own seitan, a DIY sous vide and resources for finding molecular gastronomy supplies like meat glue. I enjoyed the recipe to make brownies using orange peels as a little cup. Fun!

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The newest addition to my library is “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking” by Samin Nosrat. Like Adler, she is an alumnae of Chez Panisse. I find Alice Waters insufferable in interviews, but she raises good cookbook authors. This book is all about how to cook – how to use salt and fat and acid and heat to make good food. The first half of the book explains techniques, interspersed with her memories of learning to cook at home and in a restaurant. It almost feels like part memoir. The recipes start after she has explained how to cook. The book is illustrated and the illustrations remind me of Mollie Katzen’s work (excellent vegetarian cookbooks). Every recipe has variations at the end. I used her best pan fried chicken to make pork schnitzel.

Breaded Pork Schnitzel

Quick Frying Pork Schnitzel

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Here are three other books that serve as useful references: “Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed” and “Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking” both by Shirley O. Corriher, and, of course, “The Joy of Cooking” by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker.

If you watched Alton Brown’s “Good Eats”, then Shirley O. Corriher is likely familiar to you. She used to show up and lecture Alton about food science. Unfortunately, her cookbooks read like textbooks and she is giving a lecture. They delve deeply into the science of cooking. If you want to understand how to make a tender pie crust instead of a flaky one, she makes it clear. Each recipe explicitly lists what it is intended to illustrates. They are truly useful references, but not something you want to curl up with on the couch on a rainy day.

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“The Joy of Cooking” is an all purpose cookbook. Each chapter and section starts by telling you ‘about’ the method or ingredient. For example ‘About Pancakes’ gives tips for success and is followed by a lot (I mean a lot) of recipes. If you need to know how long and what temperature to use for that four pound roast, “The Joy of Cooking” has got you covered. It is also useful for learning the tips of success (how do I make a good dumpling) and finding a basic recipe that can serve as a base for experimentation, but I rarely make any of the actual recipes here. I just learn what goes into a typical pancake or dumpling or beef stew and go from there.

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There are a lot of wonderful cookbooks out there. I hope I’ve introduced you to a few that will help you enjoy cooking as much as I do.

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August 5, 2018
History with a Side of Food

Food history shows generally fall into two categories: those that focus on cooking with a side of history, and those that focus on history as told through food. I’d like to recommend three series that focus on history with a side of food.

First, is The Supersizers (hat tip to Lafe Long), available on YouTube. It seems to be two series, The Supersizers Go and The Supersizers Eat. The hosts are Giles Coren and Sue Perkins. The show is focused on food culture throughout British history. There are a few partial cooking demonstrations (watch a chef sew a bird’s head onto pig’s body), and they do discuss changes throughout time. For example, shifts in food due to the introduction of spices like nutmeg or the increased availability of sugar.

The hosts eat the diet of a particular era, such as Roman or Edwardian, for a week. Like Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, the two get checked out by a doctor before and after embarking on their new diet. (What should they expect from drinking all that booze during the Elizabethan era?) They dress in period costumes – Sue Perkins continues to wear her nerdy, black, hipster glasses even when wearing a toga – and sit down to eat a table set in period style. They eat off trenchers (a piece of bread) in a number of episodes because plates weren’t in use yet. The series is silly and fun and full of bite sized pieces of culinary history.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner with Clarissa Dickson Wright is more substantial fare. This three part series is also available on YouTube. Each episode focuses on a different meal and she explores how trade and technology have influenced and changed what and how we ate each meal. As in The Supersizers, the show has little in the way of cooking demonstrations, but we do see what a meal would look like and she gives a more erudite discussion of the culture surrounding food. It defintely kept my interest.

Food: A Cultural Culinary History is a banquet of information. It is available through the Great Courses channel on Amazon Prime (you can get a trial membership to binge this series). I had never watched a Great Courses series before and I’m not sure what I expected. Perhaps a Ken Burns style documentary with pictures and voice-over, or maybe something more like the History Channel with its badly acted re-enactments. Nope.

It is just a chubby guy in a suit, standing there talking. And I was riveted. This a survey of the history of the world told through food and culture. It covers the impact of trade and technology on what and how we eat from pre-history to modern times. Ken Ablala is master lecturer. He does throw in the rare, amateur food demonstration; charoset, penitent’s salad, and sushi. If you watch no other series, watch this one.

So, what did I learn? Well, two things I’d like to share. First, no matter what time period you consider, or what diet people followed, someone will passionately insist it’s wrong. And, not only is that diet physically unhealthy, it is morally unhealthy and anyone who eats that way is a bad person. (Shakes finger.) This, of course, creates an opportunity for the governing institutions of church and state to intervene. For example, during the middle ages, the Catholic Church designated nearly half the year as ‘fast days’ which meant eating fish. Even after England’s break with the church, the government (particularly the Elizabethan government) continued to require fast days – mostly to support the English naval fleet. By fishing, they retained their seaman skills and supported themselves, without the crown having to pay for a navy – thrifty. So, when someone tells you that people used to eat a lot more fish, just remember that it wasn’t necessarily by choice. The weird categorization of things as fish (beaver tails) demonstrates that people were not necessarily excited about eating fish, fish, and more fish.

Second, I have long considered cooking to be a basic life skill. I confess to being a bit condescending to those who complain about having to cook. To me, its not that hard, and how else are you going to feed yourself? Do you expect someone else to cook for you? Well, actually, for much of history, yes. Most people didn’t cook. Cooking for one’s self or one’s own family is a relatively modern practice. And, as an economist, once the reasoning for why this was dawned on me as I was watching these shows, I felt pretty stupid.

Abigail Adams by Gilbert Stuart
Cooking utensils (especially metal utensils) and a hearth designed for cooking (or later a stove) were expensive. The Roman populace couldn’t afford to have their own ovens. They took their grain to the baker, who would mill the grain and bake the bread for them. During medieval times, if you worked for the king, or even a local lord, you didn’t cook. You ate in the hall and someone else cooked for you. Peasants working in the field would bring their grain and vegetables to the field with them and it would be cooked in a communal pot.

In colonial America, Abigail Adams and her husband were wealthy people. She didn’t have her own bread oven. It was too expensive, and not just because of the capital investment, but because of the cost of fuel. Instead, she took her dough to the baker and rented time in his oven.

During industrialization, dormitories with eating halls were common for workers. Well into the 1950s, unmarried working people who moved to the city for work lived in boarding houses that provided meals. Even today, we largely expect college students to live in a dormitory and eat in a cafeteria. Mostly due to the cost of renting and furnishing an apartment.

Education should always change us and my foray into culinary history has made me even more willing to ignore the ever changing diet advice. It has also tempered my attitude toward those who don’t cook. In the big picture of history, not cooking isn’t that odd.

July 29, 2018
Spontaneous Cooking: Salads

Back in May, I discussed how to make dressing – the most low stakes item you could make. Today, I’d like to talk about what you should put that dressing on. I showed you a wedge salad and provided recipes for both a spinach salad and a green salad.

Green Salads

Let’s start by thinking about what makes a great green salad. A great salad should be colorful, have a variety of textures and a balance of flavors: salty, sweet, sour, bitter and savory or umami. Think about the classic salads like a Caesar salad or a spinach salad or a Greek salad. The Caesar has the green of the lettuce, the crunch of the croutons and the creamy dressing. The anchovies and parmesan add a touch of salt and savory. The spinach salad has crispy lettuce, soft eggs and crunchy bacon. Both the mushrooms and bacon add umami. The Greek salad is colorful and gives a wide variety of tastes with the salty feta, lettuce, onions, and oily and slightly bitter olives.

I think the green salad recipe I gave you in the salad dressing post is a nice template for a good salad. It has the green and dull red lettuce and the bright, sweet cherry tomatoes. The pine nuts add some crunch and the dressing is a touch sour from the lemon.

Keep these things in mind as you make a green salad. I like to use a mix of lettuces. Adding radicchio adds a pronounced touch of bitterness. To counter that, I often add dried fruit – raisins, dried cherries, or dried cranberries, even sun-dried tomatoes. I also like to play around with crunchy elements like nuts or roasted chickpeas (Drain a can and toss with olive oil and spices. Bake in a 400 degree oven until crispy, about 20-30 minutes stirring half way through.) Add shredded carrots, jarred roasted red peppers, or halved cherry or grape tomatoes for a hint of sweetness. I also sometimes add roasted veggies like artichokes or Brussels sprouts. Pickled vegetables work well, I like pickled mushrooms or grapes or cherries.

Salad Add-ins

If you want your salad to be a main dish, add roasted chicken or grilled salmon. If you toss in apples, celery and walnuts, it is reminiscent of a Waldorf salad. Capers and olives have a nice briny taste. Add jalapenos, seasoned ground meat and crushed tortilla chips for a taco salad. Cheeses like Parmesan, cheddar and feta all add a bit of umami to the salad. Using a balance of flavors makes you want to take another bite.

Now that you have all these items, stop a moment and edit. The salad I gave you in the dressing post has one element for bitter (lettuce), one for sweet (tomato), one for umami (Parmesan), and one for sour (dressing). It is pretty minimal. A good salad shouldn’t be something of everything you have in the fridge. I don’t like Cobb salad for this reason. The Greek and chef’s salad are pushing it for me. Just too much stuff. Your line will be different. You should experiment to find it.

Salads aren’t limited to various lettuce concoctions, of course. Here are two more possibilities.

Salmon salad

This salmon salad is inspired by “Eat This Not That” grilled salmon salad. It uses grilled salmon, red onions, and cherry tomatoes, green beans or asparagus (or both, why not), capers, and I add a hard boiled egg.

Salmon Salad

First, slice a few red onions and put it in some red wine vinegar. Both red onions and shallots benefit from being soaked in vinegar. It mellows them out. Grill the salmon and either green beans or asparagus. Add a little dijon mustard to the red wine vinegar and onions and whisk. Add salt and pepper to taste. When the salmon and vegetables are done; chop. Add a little extra virgin olive oil to red wine vinegar and whisk. Then add the salmon and grilled vegetables. Lastly, add a few cherry or grape tomatoes and a sliced hard boiled egg and toss. This salad is just as good cold, so I make at least two servings and set some aside to take for lunch.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

I also like to make roasted vegetable salads. Again, this is something I actually make more than one serving. Roasted veggies are good both hot and cold, so I eat one serving hot as dinner and take the second serving to work for a lunch. You could also toss in a green salad. Paired with a crusty bread, cheese and a good wine, this is a satisfying summer dinner.

Roasting Veggies

I’m always interested in what everyone else is making. Here are two that intrigued me (if I missed including your salad, I apologize).

Check out Timeloose’s Soba Noodle Salad

He uses soba noodles, shredded cabbage, carrots, scallions, red peppers and snow peas and dresses it with a peanut butter dressing made of peanut butter, soy sauce, siracha and vinegar. It’s been added to my rotation. I am in love with this. It offers so many possibilities for experimentation. It’s delicious, as is, but, of course, I can’t resist experimenting with it. So far, I have added leftover pork to the noodles and garlic and fresh grated ginger to the dressing.

Western Sloper’s Simple Summer Salad uses peeled and sliced cucumbers, halved cherry tomatoes, red onion, kosher salt, olive oil and sumac. Serve chilled. I’m going to have to go to the middle eastern market and see if I can find sumac. I’ve never tried it before. I recommend salting the onion before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. It will have a similar effect to soaking it in vinegar and remove some of the harshness.

What are your favorite salads?

July 22, 2018
Spontaneous Cooking: Pantry Meals

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So far, I have talked about cooking from fresh ingredients and avoided the use of processed ingredients. But, just as I think everyone should have a date night dinner they can pull out to make, I think everyone should be able to make dinner strictly from pantry items. This is useful when you (like me) have recently been traveling and haven’t been able to get to the grocery store, or if (like me) you are just swamped at work and haven’t been able to get to the grocery store. Knowing how to make a meal from the pantry means you can still avoid the high calorie, high volume of take out.

I have a pretty extensive pantry. As a partial list, I keep canned beans (black, white and red), canned tomatoes, canned green beans, canned artichoke hearts, canned tuna, and cream of mushroom soup on hand. I also always have frozen broccoli, artichoke hearts, Brussels sprouts, and salmon or other frozen fish in the freezer. I keep rice, wheat pasta, rice noodles, and bouillon in my pantry as well. In addition to canned, frozen, and dry goods, I think of a few fresh (fresher) items like kielbasa, or other pre-cooked sausage, onions, garlic, spinach, and lemons or limes as pantry items because I always have them on hand. Your pantry items may be different.

Pantry meals do have a downside. They aren’t as tasty as cooking from scratch and downside for me – upside for some – they make more than one serving. I take the leftovers to work for lunch.

Sausage and Beans

I make sausage and beans from pre-cooked sausage (most recently chicken and garlic), white beans (usually cannellini, but others work), garlic and spinach.

Sausage & Beans Ingredients

I cut about one third of the kielbasa into rounds,the rest I put in the refrigerator – it will keep for a few days for other recipes – and sauté the rounds.

Sausage Saute

I just brown the slices on both sides. I don’t even add any oil. The slices will give off fat while browning. Next, I add some chopped garlic and a drained and rinsed can of white beans. I like the beans toasted, so I give it a minute or two, stirring occasionally.

Add Beans

Add Spinach

Then add about one half of a bag of spinach.

Turn off the heat and toss it until the spinach wilts.

Sausage Sauté with Spinach

Squeeze a lemon quarter over it, it does make a difference. This makes about three servings for me.

But why not just get takeout? I timed this. It took me sixteen minutes to make, including slicing the sausage and chopping the garlic, and I wasn’t rushing. It also cost much less than takeout and I think it is better for me.

Variations: You can use black or red beans, even chickpeas, instead. On one occasion, I didn’t have sausage, but I did have pepperonis. So I put a little oil in the pan, sautéed the garlic, added the beans and pepperonis, then the spinach. It was good. You could substitute chorizo or other sausage as well. If it isn’t pre-cooked, though, it will take longer to make.

Another use for sausage is a variation of the stove top hotdish I grew up with. Stove top hotdish is a package of mac ‘n’ cheese combined with a cut up hot dog and frozen veggies or a can of tuna and frozen peas. I no longer buy packaged mac ‘n’ cheese. Instead I use a little pasta, frozen veggies and whatever cheese I have on hand. Most recently I had cream cheese to use up. I sautéed my sausage, microwaved a broccoli cauliflower mix and combined it with some pasta, cream cheese, cheddar, and cayenne pepper.

Spinach, sausage, and garlic are fresh(er) ingredients. What if you don’t have those on hand?

Easy, make 8 minute soup. This is a strictly canned goods dish. Drain and rinse a can of black beans and a can of red beans. Put in a pot. Add a can (including liquid) of tomatoes. Add a drained and rinsed can of corn. Add two or three cups of broth (made with bouillon if needed) and a tablespoon of chili powder and ½ tsp of cayenne and ¼ tsp of black pepper. Taste, then add salt. All those canned goods have salt, so make sure you taste to avoid an overly salty dish. Bring to a boil and boil for 8 minutes. If you use vegetable broth, you have a vegan soup. (You’re welcome, SP).

These are just three of what I call pantry meals. There are hundreds more that you can make. As I mentioned above, it really depends on what you keep in the pantry. So, Glibertarians, what do you keep in your pantry, and what are your favorite pantry meals?

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Done!

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July 15, 2018
Spontaneous Cooking for Two! Date Night Dessert

Previously, I showed you how to make a chicken kiev type dish as an impressive date night main course. A date night dinner also needs a dessert. It’s ok to serve fresh fruit and cookies, but I’d like to show you how to make an equally impressive dessert to go with it. Although I said a date night dinner shouldn’t require you to spend time in the kitchen, this dessert does. It’s your chance to show off. I’m going to make a pineapple flambé to serve over ice cream.

Mise en Place

This dessert is yet another canvas for experimentation. I like to use a fresh fruit and a dried fruit. I soak the dried fruit in liquor. I am using dried cherries soaked in rum. Soaking them plumps them up and lets them soak up the flavor. I suggest you begin soaking them just before serving dinner. The rum is needed to make the flambe.

Cherries in Rum

I like cinnamon and pineapple, so I also dust the pineapple with a little cinnamon. I chop some fresh pineapple and sauté it in butter and a little brown sugar. When the pineapple reaches a good texture – easily pierced with a fork – I will add the dried cherries and rum.

IMPORTANT!

Important safety tip. Always remove the pan from the fire, add the alcohol, and then put it back on the fire. (Your guest should stand back.) If you have a gas stove, tip the pan slightly (away from you) and the fumes will catch fire. Impressive. If you don’t have a gas stove, use a lighter once the pan is returned to the heat.

Flambé!

FLAMBE BABY!

Once the alcohol is flamed off, remove from the heat, dish up some ice cream and serve the pineapple mixture over the ice cream. Add a few nuts for texture. I’m using chopped pecans, but walnuts would also work.

Finished Dessert

(I know this is two big servings, I decided this would be my dinner. DON’T JUDGE ME!)

Variations

You can do many different combinations. I have done fresh apples (use something tart) and golden raisins soaked in bourbon. An apple brandy could be used, or switch out the raisins for dried cranberries. Peaches and dried cherries, pineapple and dried bananas, bananas and dried pineapple – you pick the liquor. They all work. I’ve used cinnamon on apples and basil on pineapple. Peaches, dried cherries and mint worked well. A friend of mine makes vanilla sugar by putting split vanilla beans in sugar in a small container. I bet that would be a good substitute for the sugar and cinnamon I used here. You’re going to eat it over ice cream, it’s hard to screw up.

July 1, 2018
In Honor of My Father: Dad’s Chicken Stoup

My Dad died almost two years ago. He farmed while my mom taught special ed, and so he was the one who took care of us when we were sick and he did a lot of the cooking. He frequently made things like fried chicken, sourdough pancakes or eggs and fried cornmeal mush at breakfast (must use bacon fat), Swiss steak, or pan fried walleye. It’s Father’s Day and I’ve been thinking about him and wanted to share one of my favorite dishes of his.

Dad used to make chicken soup with homemade noodles. My siblings and I always wanted Dad to make it instead of Mom because he was much messier with the flour and the broth would thicken until the dish was no longer soup, but not quite stew. We called it Dad’s Chicken Stoup.

Start with the noodles. Put a cup of flour in a bowl and add about 1 tsp salt and stir well. Don’t put the flour away, you’re going to need it later. Make a well in the center of the flour and add an egg.

Stir with a fork until it comes together in a nice ball that cleans the sides of the bowl.

If it is too dry, add a little water. Just a little – you can always add more. If you added too much water, add a little flour; this isn’t a precise recipe. The dough ball shouldn’t be sticky.

I often add frozen spinach (thawed, drained and well squeezed) with the egg or dried herbs to the flour (½ to 1 tsp depending on the herb – ½ tsp for sage, 1 tsp for marjoram), but Dad never did, so I won’t today. If you do add spinach, you won’t need any water and will need to add extra flour. Set the dough aside to rest.

Next, make the soup. This is your basic chicken soup. Chop onions, garlic, carrots and celery.

If we had mushrooms, Dad would sometimes add them, or green beans, otherwise, just the basics. I’m doing just the basics today. Sauté the chopped vegetables in a little oil until they start to soften. Sprinkle with a salt. It will help the vegetables throw off liquid and improve the flavor of the soup.

I usually add the onions and let it cook for a while, then add the celery, carrots and garlic.

When the onions are nicely translucent, add chicken broth and cooked chicken meat and bring to a boil. Add about 1 tsp or so of dried thyme. Dad always used leftover roasted chicken, and so do I. I also make my own broth from vegetable trimmings and the leftover bones from roasting a chicken.

Let the soup cook until the vegetables are done. While the soup is cooking, finish making the noodles.

Split the dough into two balls. After it has rested, it will be sticky because the moisture from the egg and any added water gets absorbed into the flour. Put plenty of flour on the board and roll one of the dough balls in it.

Roll out the dough very thin, using more flour as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling pin or the board. When you are done, sprinkle the dough with more flour, then gently roll it up into a cylinder.

This will prevent it from sticking to itself.

Slice it into strips and then unroll the noodles.

Put them back in the bowl and toss with yet more flour.

Repeat with the second dough ball. I usually skip rolling the dough into a cylinder, cutting it, and unrolling the noodles. Instead, once I have it rolled thin, I cut it into strips using a pizza cutter. Today, I’m doing it Dad’s way.

When you are happy with the doneness of the vegetables, drop the noodles into the soup a few at a time.

The noodles cook fast (about one to two minutes) and swell as they cook.

This is my true comfort food because it reminds me of Dad every time I make it.

Note that if you have leftovers, the noodles will continue to soak up the liquid and the broth will continue to thicken. I like it best the next day when most of the broth has soaked into the noodles and what is left is thick and stew-like. If you want it to still be soup-like, you will need to add more broth when reheating.

June 17, 2018
Spontaneous Cooking for…Two! Date Night Dinner

So far, I have mostly talked about cooking for one without recipes. I think everyone should have a more involved dinner they can make for date night. But, even a date night dinner doesn’t need a recipe.

Let’s think about what a good date night dinner should be. First, I think it should be something special, something that shows you like your date and want to impress them. By this I mean that it should be a little unexpected and, although it is something that takes more work than normal, it should look effortless. Second, you want to spend time with your date, not cooking. That means it should be something that allows you to do the work ahead of time. I’m going to show you how to make a chicken kiev type dish.

It is much easier than it sounds, it looks impressive and you can do almost all the work and clean up before your guest arrives. A chicken kiev type dish is a pounded chicken breast wrapped around a filling, usually a flavored butter, and then breaded.

First, make the filling. Traditional chicken kiev is filled with butter, garlic and parsley. Chicken cordon bleu uses ham and cheese. You could do sauteed onions and mushrooms. This is yet another canvas for experimentation; you are limited only by your imagination. I’m going to make a pesto type filling.

Pesto is basil, garlic, pine nuts, parmesan, salt and olive oil. When I make pesto, I usually make a lot and freeze some. I put basil, chopped garlic, salt, toasted pine nuts, and parmesan in my food processor (a blender works too) and pulse it until it becomes a paste. At this point, I would normally add olive oil, but today I am going to scoop some out and mix it into softened butter.

Pesto Butter Prep

Then, I put down some plastic wrap and spread the pesto butter on it, roll it up and put it in the freezer.

Pesto Butter Prep 2

I am making a lot of the butter because I will use it in other recipes later.

Final Pesto Butter Prep – Ready to Freeze

You could do just enough for this dinner.

Minimal Butter Prep

Basically, this is a compound butter. You can do this with all kinds of herbs. A pat of butter mixed with red wine and herbs is sometimes used as a topping for steak. I put the butter mix in the freezer because we need it to be frozen when we cook the chicken. That helps prevent it running out of the breast, making a mess, and leaving dry chicken behind.

Next, pound out the chicken breasts. I put two small chicken breasts between sheets of plastic wrap and pound them thin.

Small Chicken Breasts

I have a meat mallet, but you could also use a small frying pan or sauce pan or even a rolling pin.

Alternate Pounding Tools

You want to make the chicken thin with a uniform thickness.

Pounded Chicken Breasts

Get the frozen butter from the freezer, unwrap, and cut a piece for each breast. Then roll the chicken around it and secure with toothpicks. Use plenty of toothpicks – you don’t want to leave it loose and have all your filling disappear when it cooks. Don’t stick the toothpicks through the filling. That just creates holes for the filling to leak out of. At least one or two toothpicks should be pushed through as if it were a pin in a piece of cloth – or, as if you were making a stitch.

Now we are ready to bread it.

Wrapped Breasts and Breading Prep

I add salt and pepper to each pan and paprika to the bread crumbs. I roll the breast in flour and shake off the excess. Dip it in a beaten egg, shake off the excess, then roll it in bread crumbs. I used panko, but you could use corn flakes, regular bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, dried potatoes, whatever. This will get messy, which is why I don’t have pictures of this process or wrapping the breasts. I didn’t want to get my phone all icky. When each one is done, I put it in a pan prepared with cooking spray.

Breaded

The breasts should rest to let the coating set. No matter what cooking method you choose – deep fried, pan fried, or baked – you need to let the breaded food rest for a while. Otherwise the breading will fall off. Maybe everyone else knew this, but when I learned this, it made a huge difference in my results.

The breasts should bake at 375F for 30-40 minutes. I usually turn them about half way through. When done, the breading should be brown and crispy.

Finished

As always, use a meat thermometer. Make sure you stick it into meat (the ends) and not the filling. Food poisoning isn’t sexy. I chose to bake this because I am making it for a date night. You could deep fry or pan fry it instead, but that would require you to monitor it while it is cooking, taking time away from your date.

You can do everything but bake the breasts a few hours ahead of your date, leaving you time to clean up the kitchen. It won’t hurt the breasts to spend time in the refrigerator. You could have the oven heated and put the breasts in when your date arrives, leaving time for a glass of wine.

A dinner needs a side dish. You could serve a pretty salad or boiled potatoes. It is a date night, so keep it light. I am making roasted cauliflower because I can bake it in the same pan as the breasts. Then I only have one messy dish. I just chopped it into florets, tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper and put it in the same pan as the chicken. The side dish you choose should pair well with the filling. In the final picture, you can see the filling, which can be used to help season the cauliflower.

Finished and Sliced

Fancy!

A date night dinner needs one more thing, a dessert. I’ll talk about that another time.

June 3, 2018
Spontaneous Cooking: Homemade Salad Dressing

Summer Time is Salad Time

The weather is finally getting warmer. That means it’s time to eat more salad. I thought I’d talk about homemade dressings. I have a special place in my heart for homemade dressing because that is what inspired me to really learn to cook.

I was visiting a friend over July 4th for a big party when her mother opened a three ring binder full of recipes. Some of them were handwritten, others clipped from newspapers and magazines. She pointed to one and said, “You’re making that.” It was a green salad with dressing.

Growing up, there were always three bottles of Wishbone dressing in the fridge: Ranch, French, and diet Italian. Salad was iceberg lettuce with tomatoes, or if Mom was feeling fancy sliced radishes or shredded carrots. The salad I made and its dressing were a revelation. I never knew salad could taste so good, the dressing was tart and fresh and garlicly. I’ve made my own dressing ever since.

I save small jars, like caper jars or glass spice jars. They’re the right size for making small amounts of dressing and they are easy to clean in the dishwasher. They are also small enough to put in my salad container and take to work.

I think they are far superior to this plastic crap. I used these once and was never able to satisfactorily clean them. The only reason they are still in my house is that my mother gave them to me and she might visit.

Basic Vinaigrette

Let’s start with a basic vinaigrette. A vinaigrette is three parts oil to one part acid. If you want to make a low fat version (unlikely on this web site), use two parts oil to one part acid. I say acid instead of vinegar because you can use a dry wine or citrus juice instead of vinegar.

Start by choosing a vinegar and oil. I have red wine, balsamic, white wine, apple cider, rice and white vinegar on hand.

I also have a variety of oil on hand. Olive, canola, peanut. Using a neutral oil like canola or peanut makes the vinegar the predominant flavor, using something like olive oil, changes the taste. While I don’t have any on hand right now, you could also use walnut or macadamia nut oil. Sesame oil is used as a flavor, I really don’t recommend using it for the dressing. It is overwhelming.

I just do the three to one ratio by eye. Using a small, narrow jar makes that easy. Pour some vinegar into the jar and add salt and pepper.

If this is the first time you’ve made your own dressing, you might want to stop there and add the oil – three times as much as the vinegar. Then shake well and taste. This lets you see how the vinegar and oil tastes. Experiment to find what you like. Remember you could also use citrus. I suggest adding a pinch of sugar or a little honey to balance the sour when using citrus juice. I accidentally added too much mustard, so I added more vinegar and oil and saved the extra for another day. It will separate, so take it out early and let it reach room temperature and shake it again.

Always add the seasonings to the vinegar, then add the oil. This lets the salt dissolve and flavors of herbs infuse into the vinegar. Although most dressing recipes say to add the oil in a thin stream while whisking continuously, you really can just add it, cap and shake. It will separate more quickly than if you whisk, but you’re only making enough for one or two servings and you are going to serve it shortly, so it doesn’t really matter. If you make enough to keep it for a few days, you might want to do the thin stream while whisking.

Once you know what kind of vinegar and oil you like, you can start adding other flavors. For example, add chopped garlic, or shallots or onions. You can also add fresh or dry herbs. Many classic dressing recipes call for mustard. I prefer dijon. Mustard is an emulsifier. If you use it, it helps the dressing to stay blended, and makes it creamier. For quick dressings for side salads, I often just use salt, pepper, mustard and a few pinches of either Italian or Provence blend dry herbs.

I have used tahini instead of mustard to give the dressing a Mediterranean flair. If you want to take the dressing in an Asian direction, use rice wine vinegar and add ginger in place of, or in addition to the garlic. I have also dropped the garlic and mustard and used serrano peppers to make a spicy version. This kind of vinaigrette is a low stakes opportunity for experimentation. Just try whatever you like. You’re only making a small amount, so if you don’t like the result, just start over. I hope, by writing these posts, that I encourage people to just try new flavor combinations and gain confidence in the kitchen.

Warm Vinaigrette

A fun variation on the basic vinaigrette, and my current obsession, is warm vinaigrette. Spinach salad with warm bacon vinaigrette, is probably the most familiar of the warm vinaigrettes. A spinach salad is spinach, red onion, sliced mushrooms, hard boiled eggs and bacon. Make some bacon, and when done, let it drain on some paper towels. Toss spinach with the red onion and mushrooms, then crumble bacon over it. Add a sliced hard boiled egg. Spoon out a little of the bacon fat and add it to some red wine vinegar seasoned with salt, pepper and dijon mustard. Whisk and pour over the salad; toss and enjoy.

Pan sauces are also close to warm vinaigrettes. The biggest difference is that you don’t reduce the sauce. Sometimes, instead of deglazing with wine, I use a vinegar to deglaze and serve it over a salad. This sort of dressing is great over grilled romaine or radicchio.

Creamy Dressings

If you like a creamy dressing, they are also easy to make. Creamy dressings usually use buttermilk, cream, mayonnaise, yogurt, sour cream or even cream. Sometimes, they use more than one. Blue cheese dressing over a wedge of iceberg lettuce is a classic. An easy blue cheese dressing combines blue cheese, mayonnaise, buttermilk, apple cider vinegar, salt, and lots of fresh ground black pepper. I start by putting some blue cheese in a bowl and mashing it with a fork.

Then I add mayonnaise and buttermilk. I add salt and pepper, then thin it a bit with a little (like, ½ to 1 tsp) apple cider vinegar.

Then I serve it over an iceberg lettuce wedge with a pan fried pork chop. If I had bacon, I would crumble a little over it.

You could alter that basic recipe by using lemon juice instead of apple cider vinegar. Use sour cream or yogurt instead of (or in addition to) mayonnaise. Again, this is a canvas for experimentation. Make a creamy dressing thicker by adding more mayonnaise or sour cream, and you have a dip.

So, here is that salad I made for fourth of July years ago. I lost the actual recipe years ago and I never measure when making it so all the quantities are estimates. Years later, this is still my go to dish for taking to potlucks.

Dressing:
2 -3 cloves of garlic chopped
½ tsp of salt
¼ tsp of freshly ground black pepper
about ½ tsp of honey (I think the original used 1 tsp of white sugar).
juice of one lemon
¼ cup neutral oil

Combine first five ingredients, then pour in the oil in a thin stream while whisking. Then make the salad.

9 cups of mixed salad greens – use both red and green lettuce – torn into bite sized pieces.
3 cups of fresh basil leaves – torn into bite size pieces.
½ pint of cherry or grape tomatoes sliced in half.
¼ c shredded parmesan.
1-2 T toasted pine nuts.

Toss all with the dressing and serve.

May 20, 2018
Tulip’s Baking School: Checkerboard Cake

Let’s Bake!

Last December, I bought a stand mixer and have been busily learning to bake ever since. Unfortunately, my decorating ambitions exceed my skill. I made a peppermint cake using ground candy canes. I wanted to make it look like a peppermint candy.

Peppermint Cake by Tulip

I think if you squint and tilt your head, it sorta looks like a candy.

Anyway, even if your decorating skills are like mine (or Sloopy’s) you can still make an impressive cake using the checkerboard technique. Of course, the most important thing to remember is: IT’S CAKE! People want to eat it no matter what it looks like.

Libby’s Birthday Cake by Sloopy

I’m making a red velvet and devil’s food checkerboard cake. I like making a checkerboard cake because it has a high impact to work ratio. I am using the recipes from Diva’s Can Cook: Red Velvet Cake and Devil’s Food Cake. I am making half recipes of each type of cake because I don’t want to make a four layer cake. I am not going to show you how to make the cakes; I believe Glibs can follow recipes and UCS has already provided a great demonstration of how to make a cake. I want to show how to turn the layers into a cool looking checkerboard cake.

A few basic tips. Make sure your eggs have come to room temperature. Also, regardless of what a recipe says, I prepare my pans by buttering and flouring the pan. Don’t try to use cooking spray. It leads to flour lumps.

After you have baked the cakes and they have cooled*, make frosting. I made cream cheese frosting to go with the red velvet cake.

Baked Cakes

I have pie/biscuit cutters, but you can do this by making a template to cut around as well, or just use a bowl or lid and cut around that. I used a 9 inch cake pan and 6 and 3 inch cutters.

Cutting Tools

Center the cutters over the cake and cut it out – you should have two rings and a small round.

Cut the Rings

Separate the pieces.

Separated Rings

These cakes are both made using oil instead of butter. That results in a very tender and fragile cake, so I need to be careful when separating and assembling the cakes. Normally, I would re-assemble the cakes and then stack, but with these cakes, I will assemble it on the cake plate.

When both cakes are separated, you’re ready to assemble the checkerboard. Put a ring of red velvet on the cake plate. Put frosting on the inside piece, then add a ring of devil’s food, add frosting and then put the round of red velvet.

First Layer Assembled

Now do the second layer.

Assembling Second Layer

Once it is assembled, it’s ready to frost.

Finished Assembly

Iced Cake

On the outside, it looks like your basic cake, but when it is sliced open Voila!

As a variation, you could make a vanilla cake. Pour out the first layer of cake batter into one pan, then add food coloring to the mixing bowl and pour the second layer in the other pan. I only cut one ring for this cake.

Vanilla Checkerboard

You could also skip the cutting and assembling, and just make each layer different. If you make each layer a little darker, you have an ombre cake. This one is white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate. I put raspberry jam between the layers.

Chocolate Ombre Cake

* these are both soft moist cakes, so I refrigerated them before cutting.

May 6, 2018