Nigella?

My mom has a lot of great recipes from Nigella Lawson, and one of my all-time favorite, most impressive and easiest desserts is from her, too (Choco Hoto Pots, blogged here).  I’ve skimmed through her books before but hadn’t ever jumped for one.  But yesterday I was flipping through my mom’s copy of Nigella Express: Good Food, Fast, and it suddenly looked like something I should add to my collection.

This book looks like it focuses on homey, delicious family food that is elegant but easy to prepare.  It seems her definition of fast includes things that are just fast to prep, but still cook for a while.  Since I work from home, and don’t mind waiting an hour for something to roast, braise or boil, that’s no problem for me, though it might be for others.

Not counting Mom, has anyone else had experience with Nigella recipes, and especially this cookbook?  She’s a Brit that seems less well known over here, at least in my peer group, and I’m wondering who else out there is cooking her stuff…

Foodie World News

For the cooking nerds out there…

Some of you may have heard that Gourmet Magazine has closed up shop.  I’m not super familiar with the whole history but both Gourmet and Bon Appetit have been around for a long, long time, and lots of folks are very sad about it.  I, on other hand, am SO relieved it wasn’t Bon Appetit.  Since all the rest of my favorite magazines went under this year one by one, it’s about the only exciting thing left that I expect in the mail.  I get a LOT of my recipes from there…I’d say Bon Appetit (and the sister website, Epicurious.com, which also cataloged Gourmet’s recipes) and Barefoot Contessa supply about 85% of my recipes.  So I’m breathing a big sigh of relief that if one of the big foodie rags had to end, it wasn’t mine.  It seems like the Editor in Chief, Barbara Fairchild, does a great job of keeping BA relevant, with a blog, facebook page, etc.  And the content is also relevant to the younger cooks, with popular bloggers writing columns and Fairchild herself serving as a guest judge on cooking TV shows like The Next Food Network Star and Hell’s Kitchen.  I just read this interesting article about her some of you might be interested in.

And in other news, there have been a few new cookbooks released recently.  The BA Foodist, the Bon Appetit blog I was referring to above, had an interesting article on some of the newly released, highly anticipated cookbooks of the fall yesterday.  The one that really caught my eye is the one called My Bread.  Apparently the NY Times article that the author wrote about his unique, very easy bread-making technique was the one of the most searched articles in NY Times history!  I have a vague memory of reading it a while ago, but bread is one of those things I just don’t get excited about trying.  Cheese, oui; bread, sounds like too much work.  But after educating myself reading the reviews of the book, it sounds like it might be worth a shot!  The guy’s method is to basically dump all the ingredients for the bread in a bowl at one time all together, let it rise for a while without doing anything else, and then bake it in a lidded dutch oven – and apparently that creates PERFECT crusty delicious bread.  That actually sounds do-able…and I’m enticed even more by the variations and recipes he suggests, including an apparently killer pizza dough.  And you all know how I feel about pizza.  So the book is intriguing and has landed on my wishlist.

One new release that I am quite disappointed didn’t make the list in the article above is called My New Orleans, by John Besh.  Besh is a native of the city, and one of it’s most celebrated chefs.  He has a handful of restaurants in the city that regularly are counted among the best.  It looks like this book has TONS of great recipes and whole chapters on crab, gumbo, THANKSGIVING! (everyone email my husband and tell him I NEED it for our Thanksgiving feast this year!!!), strawberries, and Mardi Gras.  Something about the way it’s organized and the foods and events he’s drawn out make me love this book already.  I haven’t yet gotten to go ‘visit’ it at the bookstore and see how complicated the recipes are, but the one recipe on the Amazon page doesn’t look bad at all.  Yet another one for the wishlist!

(sorry for the lousy picture I hijacked off Amazon)

Today it is pouring rain in Chapel Hill, and it’s definitely chilly weather now, and that is a combination that makes me RUN to my kitchen to cook…nothing like something hot and bubbly and smelling wonderful in my big red dutch oven on a rainy day!  And these cookbooks are a great inspiration to get to it!  Stay dry, y’all!

Wild Rice and Mushroom Stuffing

I recently tried out a fun new recipe from Bon Appetit’s Thanksgiving issue that I think you all would like, called Wild Rice and Mushroom Stuffing!  It is the perfect side dish – makes a lot, and complements a lot of the richer autumn and winter flavors without being too rich itself.

First, though, a confession: I HATE stuffing.  I know I’m in the extreme minority here, but seriously – soggy bread??  No thanks.  I pass on it every year.  Even last year, when I thought there was a chance I might like the Bojangles-biscuit base of the stuffing I made.  The top parts that got crunchy were ok, but the rest was the same deal as every year.

So no doubt part of what made this dish jump out at me was that it’s called a ’stuffing’ but does not involve any wet bread!  As such it’s lighter and healthier, but it’s still hearty enough to stand up next to turkey and gravy – or grilled sausage, which we ate with it.

I was also intrigued by the wild rice…since reading about it in my new Super Natural Cooking cookbook (which I am in love with and will tell you more about later) I have been wanting to try using it in more recipes.  Curiously, wild rice is not rice at all, but a grass!  Wikipedia says: “Almost always sold as a dried whole grain, wild rice is high in protein, the amino acid lysine anddietary fiber, and low in fat. Like true rice, it does not contain gluten. It is also a good source of the minerals potassium and phosphorus, and the vitaminsthiamine, riboflavin and niacin.”  So very interesting stuff, and pretty healthy, as are mushrooms.  Definitely worth a try, I figured.

It’s a bit of a process to pull together – not difficult at all, but requiring several steps that are time-consuming.  The wild rice is a little tough and has to cook for about 45 minutes on its own first.  Meanwhile you’re sauteeing and browning various veggies in batches in your other pot.  Eventually they all go in together with brown rice and chicken broth to cook for more time.  Which is all excellent for developing and layering flavors, but does take some time to complete.  The good news is that I’m pretty sure you could make this in advance and reheat for your meal – which is especially good for Thanksgiving but frankly, why reserve a perfectly good dish like this for once a year?

I halved the recipe since it was just the two of us and leftovers that I was cooking for, and it made for two dinner helpings and two lunch-bowl sized portions.  The full recipe would definitely feed a crowd, expecially as one of many sides.  But the leftovers were delicious warmed up and no worse for their time in the fridge.

One interesting ingredient in the recipe is the ancho chili.  You don’t really think of adding heat to a dish like this, but we really liked it!  I didn’t bother with looking for the dried ancho at Harris Teeter, instead I used one chipotle pepper (as I’ve mentioned before, I like to put the ones I don’t use into separate plastic baggies in the freezer so I can add them in small amounts to soups and stews and salsas).  One chipotle made this pretty hot – perfectly hot for Michael and a bit too hot for me.  I’d add half a chipotle for half the recipe next time, and a whole one if I’m making the full recipe.

In summary, this is a great side dish with tons of flavor that is healthy and hearty and will complement a lot of rich, wintery meals.  Find some time on a weekend, start an hour and a half ahead of dinner, and make a batch to try.  I bet the leftovers would freeze well too!

 

Chili and Cornbread

Time to get back into the blogging habit…despite the fact that life continues to be something of a whirlwind at the Skena household, we are at least cooking and eating together again.  Since we’re both just a teensy bit stressed with huge amounts of work these days, the eating is falling into the ’special treat’/comfort food categories.  This weekend, that meant chili and cornbread for three meals as we were both umbilically attached to our computers.

I wish I could tell you that I have THE perfect chili recipe.  But to be honest, every version that I try always tastes pretty similar to me.  With the exception of Cincinnati Chili which I LOVE, and Michael does not love.  Cincinnati Chili has cinnamon and cocoa powder in it, and is served over spaghetti with raw onions and shredded cheddar cheese on top.  It is such a weird dish, but it really works for me.  Michael likes it as long as he’s not prepared for actual chili, and can consider it as a separate dish.  I’ve been craving it recently, so hopefully we’ll make some soon and I’ll show you the recipe, in case any of you are up for an adventure in alternative chilis.

But for regular chili, I don’t have much exciting to share.  I have the recipe my mom always made, which we all love.  Michael has a recipe that he made by combining other recipes, which is also very good.  And I have this easy black bean chili recipe that I am a little surprised to say is from Rachel Ray (I don’t usually cook her food, but I saw this on Food Network and thought it looked good).  All these recipes are good and they all taste about the same.  But maybe that’s what we’re all looking for in a bowl of steaming, hearty chili on a cold, rainy day – something comforting and familiar.  This weekend I used the Rachel Ray recipe, though I made my own changes and variations.   The only significant thing about it is that it uses black beans, which I much prefer to kidney beans.  I added oregano since it needed a little earthiness.

I do, however, have a killer cornbread recipe.  Of course, it’s Barefoot Contessa.  This cornbread is on the sweeter, cakier side but has great flavor from jalepenos and green onions.  It makes a giant 9×13 pan, which I love, because the cornbread freezes and reheats quite well, so we’ll get a ‘free’ side dish to soup or chili again in the future.  Because this cornbread is cakey, you need to be a little careful with it during preparation.  As with other flour-based baked goods, keep a light hand with your stirring.  Rigorous stirring develops the gluten in the flour, which will make your end result  denser and flatter instead of fluffy with a light crumb.  Give the mix as few turns of a gentle spatula as you can to still get it thoroughly mixed.  And then be sure to let it sit for the full 20 minutes recommended before baking.  It will rise and fluff quite a bit, which you’ll definitely want in the finished product.  When I’ve skipped this step, I’ve definitely noticed the difference.

One quick tip that you can use for both these recipes: too many times I have set my eyeballs aflame taking out my contacts hours after chopping jalepenos.  An easy way I’ve found to de-seed hot peppers is to chop off the top with the stem and then cut the jalepeno in half length-wise.  Then use a 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon to scrape down the jalepeno, removing not only the seeds but the membranes holding them, which are what actually contain all the heat.  Just scrape them into the sink or trash, and you’ll have them well seeded without ever touching the hot parts with your fingers!

It’s still raining and grey here in Chapel Hill as we finish our third and final meal of chili and cornbread, and just writing about it makes me feel ready to make another pot.  Maybe Cincinnati Chili will be coming sooner than I thought…

Black Bean Chili (adapted from Rachel Ray)

2 lbs. ground beef

1 Tbs olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce

1 red onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and chopped

3 Tbs chili powder

1 Tbs cumin

1 Tbs dried oregano, or 1 tsp ground oregano

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup of beef or vegetable stock

1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes

1 14.5 oz can of tomato puree

2 15 oz cans of black beans, drained and rinsed

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1. In a large pot, brown ground beef in oil over high heat until browned and crumbly.  Drain off most of the fat, then season the meat with salt and pepper.  Add the Worcestershire sauce.
2. Reduce heat to medium-high and add the onion, garlic, red pepper and jalepeno.  Season the veggies and meat with the chili powder, cumin, oregano and cayenne pepper and cook together for 5 minutes.
3. Stir in the broth and scrape up pan drippings.  Stir in the diced and pureed tomatoes and black beans.  When the mixture comes to a bubble, reduce heat to simmer and let it cook about 15 minutes.  Add cilantro to the pot or serve on top.

Ina Garten’s Jalepeno Cheddar Cornbread

The Blog-iversary!

One year ago yesterday, I posted my first entry on this blog.  I was, like most people that start blogs, terrified.  I really didn’t feel like I had anything to say about food that people would care about; I just knew I thought about cooking all the time and maybe this would be a fun creative outlet.  5,897 views later, you, my dear friends, have shocked me by not only reading this blog and checking back, but actually MAKING some of the things I write about!!!  It is gratifying and humbling at the same time, because I realize I need to make darn sure the recipes I put up here are good, do-able and correct.  The past few months have been a dry spell since I’ve been away from home so much (in fact, I counted it up the other day and I’ll have been home to sleep in my own bed for only 27 nights out of 92 in August, September and October).  But I’m done traveling for a while, and there is a crispness to the air, which always makes me want to be inside and cook warm food that makes the house smell cozy and wonderful.  And there’s Thanksgiving to look forward to – this year we’re planning a New Orleans themed menu!

So all that to say, thanks.  Thanks for reading, and thanks for making this little project so incredibly rewarding, much more so than I had expected.  And a special shout-out to Julie (you know which one) who has been my loudest and most loyal cheerleader!

BON APPETIT!

Winter S’mores

We certainly enjoyed some yummy New England treats on our trip last week – clam chowder, lobster rolls, maple syrup, apple cider, etc.  I don’t have any recipes for you from those tasty foods, but I do have one useful camping food tip!

We spent 4 nights camping during our trip – two nights in Maine, two nights in Massachusetts.  We’d expected it to be pretty chilly, but a cold front came through after Maine and it was literally FREEZING; we woke up to snow on our tent one morning!  Luckily, though, the cold temperature is what led us to a great S’mores discovery.  I know you might think there’s not a lot missing in S’mores, being as they are a nearly perfect food…and I’d have agreed with you, til we we were reading the packing on Smores sticks we bought (only when camping are you bored enough to actually read packagine!) and saw they suggested using Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups instead of chocolate!

We were instantly intrigued by this idea because honestly, what are Reese’s PB cups NOT good in or with?  So we picked up a bag of the full size cups (not the little round snack size) and tried them.  Of course they are different tasting, and if you’re a purist with your S’mores, you might miss the milk chocolatey flavor – but I thought the peanut butter was delicious with the marshmallow!  The most important thing, though, was that in the very cold night air, the PB cup did much better than the chocolate.  The chocolate gets so cold that it doesn’t even have much flavor, and even the hot oozy marshmallow can’t get it to soften up enough.  This isn’t a problem in the summer, when it all becomes one big gooey mess.  But in the cold, the PB cup, with it’s softer center and thin layer of chocolate on the top, was much less crunchy than the chocolate bar and melted better with the hot marshmallow.

You can see we at A Table are always looking for these helpful tips to eat better no matter where you are…

The Crazy Fall

Dear Reader,

I notice a few of you very faithful friends have been checking this blog the past few weeks, and I’m afraid there has been very little of interest for you to see.  My travel schedule for work has been off the charts (I was home for 10 days in August and September!) and I, sadly, have been cooking very little, nor eating a lot of anything interesting, either.

Next week, the hubby and I are going on a much-needed getaway – a road trip through New England (mostly Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts).  I still won’t be cooking but I plan on a lot of good eating, especially involving seafood and anything apple related.  I’ll try to post from the road as we’re able (and since it’s a road trip, there may actually be time to write!).

Thanks for checking faithfully even though my kitchen’s been closed lately.  I am looking forward to getting back in there soon, and since I just grabbed the Thanksgiving issue of Bon Appetit for the trip, we’ll have lots to talk about related to that!

Happy eating!

Afghan Hospitality

I recently spent two weeks in Kabul, Afghanistan, working with our dedicated team on wrapping up this year and planning next year’s work.  Despite the sad situation of the country and the pressures and disappointments of the recent election, I had a wonderful time.  The Afghan people, every single one I met, were warm, welcoming and gracious.   It was a privilege to step into their life for a few days and come alongside them in their ardent desire to make things better in the future for their children. 

I was overwhelmed by their generosity, which came from all corners.  Despite the fact that it was Ramazan and everyone was fasting from food and drink during daylight hours, they all wanted to make sure I had water, tea and coffee.  When I mentioned how gorgeous the grapes hanging from arbors around our office were, a giant plate of them appeared.

A highlight of the trip was dinner with Dr. Stanekzai, our Team Leader, and his wonderful family.  His wife prepared a FEAST of Afghan food for us, and it was absolutely delicious.  We had the traditional Afghan dish, Quabuli Pilau, which the cook at our house had also made for me – rice with carrots and raisins.  It sounds unusual but it is very good!  We also had a delicious vegetable soup, goat kabobs (you may remember I adore goat), beef, garlicky potatoes, spinach, salad, and my favorites whose name I don’t remember – fried savory pancake-type breads, one stuffed with pumpkin and one stuffed with chives.  And to have on the side, wonderful fresh yogurt which I particularly liked for dunking the savory fried pancakes!

Look at this amazing spread!!!  And this does not include dessert which offered several heaping plates of fruit (grapes, bananas, melon) and candies.

Me with the fabulous chef:

 

I really loved the Quabuli Pilau dish so much, I wanted to make sure I got the recipe to bring home and recreate.  I love flavorful rice sides to go along with stewed meats and grilled veggies.  The cinnamon-y flavor of this rice, with the sweet cooked carrots, plump raisins and rich almonds was a perfect combination.  I asked our cook how to make it one morning, and he said he would write down the recipe for me.

There are two things I love about the following recipe.  One, is that the English is adorably imperfect, and reading it reminds me of how our cook loved that I loved this, and how eager he was to write it down for me to make at home, despite the fact that he couldn’t speak English very well.  The wording shows his kind heart.  Two, I am sure this recipe previously existed only in his head and I can see in his writing it down the similarity to how I write recipes.  When cooking familiar foods, it’s usually your intuition that guides you to a bit of this, and a bit of that, tasting and adjusting.  I have several things I routinely make that I’m hard pressed to record in a precise recipe.  The first time I attempt the written recipe, I think it usually reads something like this one - ‘oh, cook it for 5 minutes or so’.  I always have to go back through it one or two times to adjust temps, times, etc based on what I actually do, and not just how I think I’m doing it in my head!

I look forward to getting home and following these directions to recreate the wonderful Quabuli Pilau of Kabul.  I’ll tweak this to American measurements, and figure out how best to add the cinnamon and other spices that our cook used but didn’t include in the recipe.  I imagine that this will be the perfect rice side dish to some good Middle Eastern meatballs, perhaps even trying the meatballs with pine nuts from my new Molly Wizenburg cookbook (see the review here).  In fact, that sounds like a plan – as soon as I’m back home in my cozy kitchen, I think that will be the first dinner I’ll make!  Stay tuned for the retooled recipe and a report out on the meatballs…

Quabuli Pilau

1. In one kilo rice put 1 liter water.  Cook 10 minut rice in water after that clean.
2. That rice put in part [pot] and add 150g butter.  Cook 5 minut.
3. First boiled 100 gr almond in water – 5 minut
4. Cooked 300 gr caroot in oil 5 minut
5. Cooked 200 gr risone [raisins].  mixed with almond, caroot and risone all of these cooked in 5 minut.  Add on rice after cooked.

The Mediterranean Way of Food

Although we don’t eat a Mediterranean style dish every night, in general I like to think that the bulk of the foods we eat at our house would fall into this category.  Our diet is heavy on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and dairy, with less frequent use of meat, and usually involving wine.  My typical rounds through the grocery store reflect this – about half my list is in the produce section, then I make often make a quick stop at the seafood counter, and on to dairy (cheese, yogurt, milk, butter, cream).  The main reason I ever stop in the internal aisles is for beans, nuts, oils, vinegars, spices or baking ingredients.  We don’t eat ‘low-fat’ necessarily, but we rarely eat processed foods.  In my mind that excuses me from having to feel guilty about cooking with a lot of butter and olive oil, and having to take vitamins.  (It’s better to get your vitamins from bio-available foods rather than a pill anyway!).

So I love to read articles like this one on the Epicurious blog that reiterates that low-fat is not the point, and that time and again the Mediterranean diet proves to have the right fats and keep people healthy longer.  If you could eat like the French, Greek and Italians, and live longer doing it, why in the world wouldn’t you??  The article links to claims that the Mediterranean diet helps lower blood pressure, staves off use of diabetes drugs, promotes bone density and may reduce risk of Alzheimers.  Pass the olive oil and a glass of red wine, please!

A Homemade Life: Book Review

Molly Wizenburg’s A Homemade Life is a book I’ve been anxious to read for about a year now.  I first met Molly in her Bon Appetit column, where she tackles a dish a month, often french in origin, with self-effacing good humor and an appealingly relaxed manner.  The header noted she was recently married (as was I) and the author of a popular food blog, Orangette, so it was only a matter of time til I took a look at her blog and loved it immediately.  What I like about Molly is that she is very REAL.  She’s up front about the fact that many meals at her house are thrown together from what’s in the kitchen and totally unglamourous, and that sometimes she doesn’t feel like cooking.  But when she does feel like cooking, she cooks wonderful food.  It’s never too complicated, it’s usually fairly healthy, it has nice french influences from her time living in Paris, and it always seems tied to stories.

So I’d been following her blog for several months, and had made some really delicious things from her suggestions, when she announced she was coming out with a book!  Really an ideal sort of cooking book – part memoir, part recipes.  I think this is a perfect combination because to me the most interesting things about food are the stories and people that intersect with a great dish.  Cooking is an artistic expression, and like any other art form, those who practice it well put themselves and their story into their creations.  I was looking forward to having a book of Molly’s recipes on the shelf in my kitchen, as well as the stories about how she became who she is as a cook, and why she cooks what she cooks.

The book is organized into many short chapters.  Each tells the story of a memorable moment in her life.  Many deal with her family’s love of cooking and eating together when she was young, her dad’s death from cancer, her experience living in Paris post-college, and meeting her now-husband.  The short tales involve food in some way, and at the end of the chapter she gives the recipe.  I want to make almost ALL these recipes…Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake…Doron’s Meatballs with Pine Nuts, Cilantro and Golden Raisins…Coconut Macaroons with Chocolate Ganache…Bread Salad with Cherries, Arugula and Goat Cheese…Brandon’s Chana Masala.  I love how even the names are tied to the people!

Molly writes with good humor, and finds the right things important (a precise recipe for French Toast) and the right things unimportant (the way the dish looks, as long as it tastes good).  I love that she includes a ‘recipe’ for french snacks like chocolate and bread, or butter and radishes.  This is a woman that loves well – her family and her friends are clearly the center of her life - and the obvious delight she takes in preparing and sharing food with them is an inspiration.  That’s why I cook…that’s how cooking can be a joy, and not a chore or a means to an end.  If food and cooking is wrapped up in friendships, memories, laughs and long dinners for you too, you’ll love this book.