Coup

Lately I can't seem to find a recipe to work for me. Sure, I occasionally beat my food into submission - or into a cake - but at the end of the day I've left it to the food to do the work while I sit back and enjoy the results. So I think my groceries have gotten together, elected a leader, and launched a coup. I've thus far imprisoned an unpliable yeast bread, an unfreezable ice cream, a dry and overly clovey cake, some overcooked chicken and stinky salmon. I'm trying to torture the name of their leader out of them. Maybe the limp cilantro sulking in murky water in the fridge is behind this. Or the one night stand I had with the chili sauce left it bitter - literally.

I don't know what's going on in my kitchen.

There have been a few allies however. Warm and comforting goat cheese grits. Spicy lamb meatballs. And my new favorite tomato curry sauce which gets along with everyone.

I found a recipe for a chick pea curry called chana Punjabi or chole (cho-lay). I've made and eaten chole before, but I gave the new recipe a try. Basically you cook up some chopped onions, garlic, ginger, and jalapenos, and then puree them with some fresh chopped tomatoes. Simmer the sauce for a while with spices like paprika, garam masala, turmeric, and coriander. At this point, you are meant to add chick peas but it occurred to me that the sauce was good enough to mix with any kind of meat or vegetable, and I had a piece of meat mysteriously marked "Goat" which I was ready to cook. The mysterious meat portion turned out to be a rack, and I decided that rather than cut it up and stew it in the sauce it would be better off roasted. I marinated it in garlic, ginger, red pepper, turmeric and salt over night, then seared it off on the stove before transferring it to the oven. Two hours later the goat was soft and supple, falling off the bone with a nicely browned crust. I poured in the tomato sauce and let it roast a bit longer, so that the tomatoes could take on the meat with their own sweet roasted flavor.


If it looks like I devoured the meat, it's true. Drenched in my new favorite sauce, it was delicious. Not to be outdone by my rebellious kitchen, I prepared a nice plate with, of course, some greens on the side.

Now that I have my tomato sauce ally, I can get back into the battle and try to hold off the dried out salami, the moldy cheeses, and the mushy vegetables. Soon I'll be whipping them into shape, or at least into a hot dish. Because that's where bad food goes to die.

Get Into Greens

I've decided to get into greens. Frequent readers of this blog may have noticed a slight bias towards desserts. But I do eat well-rounded fully balanced meals. Even though there's a pan of shortbread cooling in the kitchen right now. Mmm...
I was wandering around the supermarket last weekend, trying to stick to my shopping list. (My shopping list has sensible things on it like pears, salmon, eggs, cereal. And somehow I come home with logs of goat cheese, bottles of tahini, tins of crab meat, and dijon mustard. Canned tomatoes are a good pantry staple, but I also bought canned chipotle chilies in adobo sauce just in case. And I ended up with an entire bag of frozen mixed berries in the freezer, as if I were preparing for a fruit pie binge in the middle of the tundra.) Typically I pick up some spinach every couple of weeks, but I had just spent the last two weeks going through a giant bag of it so I was sick of spinach. I was ready to skip right past the greens to the zucchini when I noticed something. There are many leafy green vegetables other than spinach.
I've been something of a spinach junkie for a while now. There is no shortage of spinach recipes. Easiest side dish in the world? Sauteed spinach in olive oil. Best vegetable soup? Cream of spinach. Spinach and strawberry salad. Spinach pesto. Spinach pizza. But I'm feeling like such a hypocrite because I espouse the virtues of variety in food everywhere else, yet with my vegetables there is safety in cucumbers.
I do like many vegetables but I tend to buy the same ones: spinach, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, or brussel sprouts. Occasionally a red or green pepper, and lettuce and cucumbers for salad. If I'm trying to feed a vegetarian I might purchase a parsnip or rutabega, but never shall an eggplant enter my abode. But looking around at the abundance of greens, I decided I would do it. I would buy kale. I mean, it looks gorgeous. Almost too good to eat.



I quickly discovered that kale is as easy to saute as spinach but takes a little longer to wilt thick leaves that look more like a garnish than a side dish. Add a little water to the pan and cover it to braise them, or dunk them in boiling water long enough to boil (not blanch) them. Squeeze a little lemon on top. Any way you do it, you end up with a green that has more body and substance than spinach. In other words, it doesn't end up shrinking to nearly nothing the way spinach does, and a big bunch of it goes a lot further.
I can never give up my first love, spinach, but kale is a worthy adversary. Next up: collard greens. But don't worry, dessert girl will be back before long...

Sweet and Salty

In Evanston, just south of Northwestern's campus is a historic building. Students go there often, grateful that its doors are always open. When the town is shrouded in darkness it lets off a beacon of light, of hope. Despite the ups and downs of the economy and the many businesses that have departed the downtown, this place has continued to survive. I can only be talking about Burger King.

In college, I refused to go to Burger King for a proper meal. I never ate the burgers. I only ever went there late at night, when all the good restaurants and coffee shops around downtown Evanston were closed. It was a common hangout after a party or drunken dorm room binge. But often it was just something to do for a college student who didn't sleep before 3am, who was bored of ordering Papa John's pizza and cheese sticks with garlic sauce, who had exhausted the dorm's movie collection, who didn't have a boyfriend or a pre-med major.

How can I write about Burger King in a cooking blog? Isn't that like sacrilege? I only bring up Burger King because I have a memory lodged in my taste buds of salty greasy fries eaten alongside a thick vanilla milkshake. Even at age 18 I had a sophisticated palate and could recognize that combining sweet and salty flavors was satisfying.

I've since graduated from french fries and milkshakes, and had my flirtations with pretzels dipped in chocolate, canteloupe topped with feta, and caramelized walnuts. I put honey on steamed brussel sprouts and sauteed zucchini. For breakfast I can never decide whether I should have the waffles or the eggs benedict, and end up with pancakes and a side of sausage, or an omelet with a scone to start. Seeking snacks on a dreary Sunday afternoon, I bounce back and forth between cheese and crackers then scoops of Nutella. A little bite of salty, a little taste of sweet, and back again. It's like reading a book that makes you laugh and cry, like teasing the person you love the most, like listening to Prince followed by a little Norah Jones.

Lately I've been obsessed with caramel ice cream. It could be because Top Chef contestants were always making salted caramel sauce, or because I "shared" a delicious dessert of profiteroles with caramel ice cream and chocolate sauce at Enoteca Roma where I ate far more than my share. Having tried the burnt caramel ice cream recipe last week, I decided to try a regular caramel ice cream recipe and revel in the salty-sweet combination.



This recipe combines sugar melted and browned with cream, milk, egg yolks and corn syrup. Once it's been strained and frozen, the ice cream is topped with a sprinkle of sea salt (which has a slightly less harsh, less chemical flavor than regular salt). From the picture, you may detect a certain inconsistency in the consistency of my ice cream. Yes, unfortunately my version did not freeze and rather resembles a custard...or a soup. I don't know what went wrong, though I speculate that the sugar to dairy ratio was too high. But no matter. Make yourself some caramel sauce, then sprinkle on some sea salt or kosher salt. Eat it by itself, eat it with ice cream that actually freezes, eat it with a dark chocolate cake. Have a little sweet, a little salty, a sip of milkshake, a french fry, play a John Mayer CD, switch over to Nelly, and curl up in front of Little Miss Sunshine. Enjoy the flavors.

Burned is Better, Baby

Right now I have a burn mark on each arm. My right arm was not burned from cooking per se. I was boiling some water for tea, went to pull the hot water heater plug out of the wall, and my arm hovered over the steam a moment too long. It's currently peeling, this amoeba shaped burn, while doggedly impersonating a birthmark.

On my left arm is a burn from one of my new stainless steel Calphalon pans. Stainless steel pans can get hot, especially when you transfer olive tapenade steaks to the oven in them. I used an oven mitt to pull the pan out of the oven. But then I took off the mitt and leaned over the pan with a fork and knife, ready to check the steak, remove it, and reduce the pan juices into a sauce. My left arm grazed the handle and the hot metal immediately branded me. I ran for the freezer where I keep some ice packs ready for just such an occurrence. There was no residual pain, only a nasty thin brown mark. If I press it to the burn on my other arm I can shoot laser beams out of my arms and slice my enemies to shreds. Hopefully I won't end up with any scars.

In the spirit of burns and burning things, I decided to try this recipe for Burnt Caramel Ice Cream. It's an interesting concept. Go ahead and burn some sugar. Just let it melt, turn brown and then a little bit black. Come on, you burn things all the time - just not on purpose. Now add some cream and milk and let it mellow out the caramel until you get a dark, thick sauce.


Now strain it and mix in some more cream and milk, cool it in the fridge, and pour it into the ice cream maker.
I did all this without a hitch, but when I pulled it out of the ice cream maker it looked like...well...have you ever played that baby shower game where you put different types of chocolate candy mushed up in diapers and everyone has to guess what kind of candy each diaper has? Some of the candy looks an awful lot like what you might really find in a diaper.


Okay, so it's not the most appealing color for ice cream. And when I first tasted it, all I could think was This is burnt. But then I kept licking the spoon. And then I ate a whole scoop. Something about the flavor was addictive. A little bit bitter, a little sweet, with a rich wrapping of cream. It was frozen but tasted of warmth, of bonfires on the beach and roasted marshmallows. And who doesn't like the little crispy bits of pulled pork, the caramelized cheese on a pizza, the char on a hot dog, a blackened chicken sandwich? Burned is better, baby. That's how I feel about these burn marks on my arms (and the one on my wrist from a long ago misunderstanding with an oven door). I may be burned but that only makes me better.

Disappointing Peaches

I should have known it wasn't peach season. But this is how easily I'm seduced. As I wander past the fruit stand in Trader Joe's I keep my eyes scoured for my usual winter fruit purchases - apples, bananas, pears. And then I spot them. A basket of peaches claiming they would ripen in the basket and could be stored in the fridge. My excitement gets the best of me. Peaches are summer - exploding with sunshine and warmth and juice. I love the fuzzy skin and the scent. I love eating them fresh over the sink, sopping up the juice with napkins, or sliced in a fruit salad, or baked into a tart or pie. So I grab that little basket of peaches and coddle them all the way home.

But the thing about buying peaches at the end of March is that they are sure to disappoint. As soon as I bit into the first one, I knew. It was brown and mealy inside. I had to spit out the first bite. I nibbled around the worst part but that is not how you should eat a peach, by nibbling. It should be devoured. And since I can't devour these peaches, I'll have to cut them up and sadly throw quite a bit away.

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It's been about a year since the Delta and Northwest merger was announced. A known part of the merger was that headquarters for the combined airline would be in Atlanta. For Minnesotans, contemplating a move to the deep south is bizarre. No ice festival in the winter? Staying inside during the summer months? Eating grits instead of hot dish, hush puppies instead of deep fried food on a stick? It's a big adjustment.

As you know, I like to celebrate any occasion with food, and whether or not I was happy about the news was irrelevant. Just days after the announcement when my group gathered for a staff meeting to discuss the merger I carried in a peach pie. The crust was homemade, I said, but the peaches were frozen. We weren't in Georgia yet and peaches were not in season. Nevertheless, I was committed to honoring the impending Southern exposure with some peach pie Northern style. I hoped that the pie brought a little levity to a depressing meeting. At the time, the news was disappointing - but the peach pie was delicious.