Recipes, as Promised

I'm blogging about food, and I'm not even cranky.  Dinner was just so good last night that I wanted to share it with you.

I'll start with the chicken.  It's from one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, but I can't remember which one, and I'm too lazy to check.  I don't even know what it's called, so let's just call it Lemon-Thyme chicken, shall we? (I'm sorry, Ina.  It isn't your fault that your recipes are so good and so simple that even a moron like me can make them without a cookbook handy.)  You'll want to start out with roughly equal amounts of freshly squeezed lemon juice and olive oil.  I had four lemons last night, so that's how many I juiced.  (And the lemons were practically seedless.  Why are they never seedless when I'm making lemonade or sorbet?  Huh?  Why are they seedless when I'm making a stupid marinade and it doesn't matter if there are 500 seeds?  Why?)  Dump the juice in a 13x9" baking dish along with about 3/4 of a cup of olive oil.  Or maybe a whole cup; I'm fairly liberal when it comes to olive oil.  Now add a goodly amount of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper (I'm going to say about a teaspoon of salt and 12 twists of pepper) and whisk it all together until the salt dissolves.  Now you'll want to add the fresh thyme leaves.  I don't know how many thyme leaves I put in.  I just stood there at the counter, listening to The Goobers argue about whose turn it was to clean the hamster cage and ripping thyme leaves off their stems until I got bored and called it good.  Now cut up three boneless, skinless chicken breasts lengthwise into three pieces each and put them in the marinade to soak.  I left them in the fridge for about 10 hours, but anywhere from 6 to 24 hours is just fine.  Now you have to grill them, but I can't help you with that part because The Man always does that for me.  Sorry.

While The Man was outside grilling the chicken, I was standing in the air conditioning making the tomatoes.  I think I'll call them Thymaters, because this is my blog and I can do anything I want.

First I cut up a package of cherry tomatoes and sprinkled them with one large clove of minced garlic, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and fresh thyme leaves.  Then I drizzled them with olive oil and popped them under the broiler for about five minutes.  Easy, nutritious, and oh, so delicious, especially when served up with this fantastic bread.

It's the master recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  I wasn't going to order this book, but I finally beat down my inner skeptic and man, am I glad.  This bread is worth any amount of internal struggle.  The basic recipe goes something like this:

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

You mix all that together (no yeast proofing, no dissolving, no kneading) and stick it in a large, covered container to rise for two hours.  Then you pop the container in the fridge and let it sit there overnight, and THEN, for the next two weeks or so, you just whack off a grapefruit sized piece of dough whenever you want a loaf of bread.  (We Squares are pigs and gluttons, so a double recipe only kept us in bread for about ten days.)

To bake your loaf, you dust the ball of dough with flour and quickly shape it into a ball. It's supposed to be sticky, so don't try to work the flour into the dough.  Let it rest for 40 minutes on a pizza peel that has been dusted with semolina or cornmeal or whatever.  After 20 minutes, turn your oven to 450 degrees to heat up your baking stone and a broiler pan.  (Place the pan so it won't interfere with the bread's rising.)  When the dough is finished rising (it might not rise much on the counter; that's okay), dust it with flour and slash it with a serrated knife.  Transfer it to the baking stone and quickly pour one cup of hot tap water into the broiler pan and shut the door.  Bake for 30 minutes.

The bread is crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, with just the right amount of tang, and it really only takes five minutes of your life.  The rest of the time the dough is just sitting around and minding its own business; it's the perfect house guest.  Go buy this book - it's great. I haven't made any of the other recipes yet, but the Montreal bagels are calling my name so loud I can barely hear myself think.

So that was my dinner last night.  What did you have?  Oh, wait a minute - I have to follow the food blog rules and show you the plate again:

Wow, I'm so glad I don't have a food blog.  If I had a food blog, I'd say, "Dammit, you lazy bastards, scroll back up to the beginning of the post if you want to see the dinner again.  Jeez!" 

Or something like that.

Greasy Goodness

Some people call these hashbrowns.  Some people call them home fries.  You know what I call them?  I call them greasy goodness.  And they're so easy!

All you do is chop up up an onion and a bunch of scrubbed potatoes.  Fry them in whatever sort of fat you like (I was out of butter AND bacon grease, so I used olive oil here) until they are brown.  Sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, and throw in some fresh rosemary (or thyme or whatever) if you have some handy.    Serve them with cheese and/or sour cream. 

Good stuff.

Zucchini Stuff

This is another one of my favorite lunches.  It's quick, it's easy, and The Goobers don't like it so I get to eat it all.  It is based on a side dish my mom made when we were kids.  It probably had a cutsey midwestern name like "Tasty Zucchini Skillet" or "The Italian Flag in Vegetables" but we just called it Zucchini Stuff.

To make Zucchini Stuff you'll need the following ingredients:

Olive oil (my mom used butter, and that's delicious, but I'm soft and pudgy and must act accordingly), onion, zucchini, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and garlic of some sort.  I know it isn't in the picture.  Sue me, why don't you!

After you've sliced and diced your veggies, heat up a skillet and cook the onions (and minced garlic if you're using it) in about two tablespoons of olive oil.  (I really don't know where I got that two tablespoon measurement from - I just slosh olive oil in the pan until I think I have enough.)

After your onions are on the soft side, add the zucchini slices and cook them until they're on the soft side.  This is a good time to add your salt, pepper, and garlic powder if you're using it.  My mom's recipe calls for dried basil, but I don't bother with it because I'd rather have no basil than dried basil.  Dried basil sticks to my teeth and I spend my entire meal wondering, "Is there basil stuck to my teeth?  No?  What about now?  No?  What about now?"  I just don't need the aggravation.

After the zucchini has sufficiently wilted, add the tomatoes.  You don't want to completely crush the tomatoes here, so be careful.  Caress the tomatoes.  Baby the tomatoes.  Coax the tomatoes.  Or go ahead and crush them; I certainly wouldn't blame you.  The little boogers deserve it.

Now remember, if I were my mother I'd have cooked this in butter.  And after I added the tomatoes I would have sprinkled mozzarella cheese and croutons over the vegetables and let it sit, covered, on the burner until the cheese was melted.  And it would have been delicious.  But since I am not my mother, I called it quits right here and dumped it over spaghetti.  It's wonderful with bread, too, and all by itself. 

Quick "Refried" Beans

Whenever you see a food post on my blog, it means that I'm tired and frazzled and can't think of anything to write about.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I can always think of at least a hundred things to write about, but I want this blog to be a positive place, you know?  I don't want you to have to swim through a sea of sob stories and tirades.  That's no fun.  So, whenever you see a food post on my blog, it means that I am choosing to write about food rather than whatever made me sad or chapped my hide that day.  I don't like to cook, so writing about food feels the same as complaining to me.  But to you, it feels just like reading a food post.  And we all like to eat, even if we don't like to cook.  Which is how I am.

Anyway, these are the ingredients for my quick "refried" beans.  See the two cans of black beans?  You don't have to use those.  You can soak a bag of dried beans overnight and use those instead, but then they wouldn't be quick "refried" beans.  They'd be slow "refried" beans.  See those RO*TEL tomatoes and chiles?  You don't have have to use those.  You can cut up tomatoes and jalepenos and it tastes better that way, but again, they're no longer quick "refried" beans when you do that. They're pain-in-the-butt "refried" beans.  And do you see that vegetable oil?  You don't have to use that.  In fact, don't use that.  Use bacon grease.  It's better.  I've made these beans with every sort of fat available, and it's all good, but bacon fat is the best, so use it if you have it.

Okay, the first thing you want to do is to chop up half an onion and mince two cloves of garlic.  Then you want to heat a dollop of your preferred fat (which, believe you me, is bacon grease) in a skillet and cook the onions and garlic until they look right.

These don't look right.  They need to be cooked a little longer - you want the onion to be translucent.  I approve of that word.  I like to use it when justifying my perpetually filthy patio door to my mother.  "No, Mom.  The glass is not covered in dog slobber and Goober prints - it's just translucent."

When your onions look right, drain the beans (but don't rinse them) and dump them into the skillet along with the undrained can of RO*TEL tomatoes.  I like typing out RO*TEL.  More words should have stars in them, I think.  You also need to add one teaspoon of cumin, one teaspoon of Mexican oregeno (it really does make a difference, you know), salt to taste and as many crushed red pepper flakes as you can handle.  I just shake it til I break it, but I like things spicy.  I've used several dashes of Tobasco sauce instead of the pepper flakes, and it's just as good but a little smokier tasting.

It'll look a little soupy, but that's okay so chill out.  Now comes the fun part - you get to mash up the beans!  But if you're anything like me, you can think of a hundred things you'd rather do than mash up beans in a skillet, so you call your Anemone over to do it for you.  Mashing up beans is right up Anemone's alley.

Now, the original recipe says to put the beans through a food mill or a processor, but I think that's ridiculous - I have enough dishes to wash already, thanks.  You can do it if you want to, though.  I won't judge.  Just keep mashing the beans, keeping them at a sprightly simmer/low bowl until they're as mashed up as you want and the extra liquid has cooked away.  They will keep on thickening as they stand, so don't go overboard with it.

This is where you're supposed to refry the beans, but I don't do that.  If there were ever any leftovers the next day I would seriously consider refrying them, but so far that has not been my experience.  The Goobers love putting a pile of these beans on a tortilla along with a little bit of corn and some cheese.  They are also an excellent filling for vegetable enchiladas (I'll tell you about vegetable enchiladas the next time I'm feeling cranky) and they are terrific with carnitas.  By the way, if you haven't made my carnitas, you are a fool.  A fool, I tell you!  Or maybe you're a vegetarian, in which case you are just missing out.

Here is the recipe, which I adapted from Marge Poore's 1,000 Mexican Recipes:

Quick "Refried" Beans

1 - 2 tablespoons fat, preferably bacon grease
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans Goya black beans, drained but not rinsed
1 undrained 10 oz. can RO*TEL tomatoes with chiles
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregeno
crushed red pepper flakes and salt to taste

Cook the onions and garlic in the fat in a skillet until the onions are translucent.  Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer.  Cook and mash with a potato masher until the extra liquid is absorbed and the beans are smooth-ish.  Serve however you like, but they're really, really good with carnitas. 

Roasted Vegetables

It's time for another "favorite lunch" post.  Today we'll be discussing roasted vegetables.  There really isn't much to it; I chop up whatever veggies I happen to have on hand; this time it was asparagus, zucchini, carrots, red bell pepper, mushrooms and brussels sprouts.  Sometimes I have eggplant or tomatoes or yellow squash or turnips or potatoes.  Whatever's clever, baby. 

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and chop up your vegetables.  You've got to be smart about it; potatoes take a long time to roast, so you want to chop them into smallish pieces.  Zucchini melts, so you want to chop them into larger pieces.  After you've got relatively bite-sized pieces of veg, pour olive oil all over them.  Do not be afraid of the olive oil.  It's good for you.  Besides, you'll be really upset if you skimp and then have to spend the rest of the afternoon scraping potato skins off your cookie sheet.  Trust me on this!  Now you can season them however you like; kosher salt and freshly ground pepper is very nice, but you can add garlic or rosemary or thyme or whatever else you've got.  Vegetables aren't picky.

Now it's time for the roasting.  Dump the veggies onto a cookie sheet with a lip, and roast them for 15 minutes.  Stir, and then roast for another 15 minutes or until they look right to you.  (I think I took that picture at the 15 minute mark.)  It's probably best to roast your asparagus separately because it cooks so fast, but I never bother.  Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly Martha-ish, I remove the asparagus about ten minutes before the rest of the vegetables are done.

Serve these up with pasta or with a sizable chunk of crusty bread.  Delicious!

Fried Eggplant

I haven't made The Goobers squeal lately, so yesterday I decided to fix myself up a large plate of fried eggplant for lunch.  It produced the desired effect, which was Goobers running around holding their noses and squealing, "Eewwweeweweewwweeeww!" while wishing they belonged to a Kraft Macaroni and Cheese sort of mother.  Too bad, so sad, Goobers!  Ha!

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the raw, unadulterated eggplant.  It was gorgeous.  Sadly, I was too wrapped up in slicing and dicing and grating and dipping and frying and cursing myself for not having any ice cream, which is what I would have eaten for lunch instead of fried eggplant if I could have managed it.

I couldn't get anyone to even try a bite of my eggplant, which means I had to throw about half of it out, because ingesting any more than half an eggplant per week means spending more time in the bathroom than schooling The Goobers, and I refuse to give them that satisfaction.

Sorry. 

Here's the "recipe."

Fried Eggplant

Peel a gorgeous, blemish-free eggplant that looks as though it should be in a still life rather than on your grungy kitchen counter.  (Trust me on this.)  Slice it into, let's say, 1/2" slices.  Dip slices into bread crumbs into which you've crumbled about a palmful (is that a word?) of various dried herbs.  This time I used parsely and basil.  Whatever's clever.  Dip slices in a mixture of one egg and, let's say, 1/2 cup of milk.  Dip the slices in bread crumbs again and fry in a skillet full of hot olive oil until it looks done.  Sorry, but I am my mother's daughter and that's what my mom always says to me.  "Just cook it til it's done, Melly.  It's not that hard."  (No, I'm not bitter.)  So, what's done for eggplant?  The outside should be crisp, but the eggplant itself should be soft, and if you were to scrape away the crumb coating, it would be sort of translucent looking.  Just go with it, okay?  When it's done, serve it up with some hand grated Parmesan and whatever sort of spaghetti sauce you have handy.  It's best if you use leftover homemade sauce, but hey, I'm not going to judge you if you decide to use that last jar of Bertolli sauce you bought while your husband was out of town.   

Squish, Squash

Baked acorn squash is another one of my favorite lunches.  It’s right up there with tomatoes and garlic in oil and hummus.  Usually I bake it with butter and brown sugar, but I found a recipe in the Williams-Sonoma Cookbook (Anemone’s latest library find) that I just had to try. 

If you want to make the acorn squash the Williams-Sonoma way, go take a look at their cookbook.  It’s pretty.  If you want to make the acorn squash my way (and why wouldn’t you?) this is what you’ll do:

Cut a tiny little one person squash in half and scoop out the seeds.  (I’m practicing cooking for one because The Man will be deploying soon - sob, moan, weep, wail - and The Goobers will refuse to eat anything but chicken nuggets while he’s gone.)  Put about 1/8 of a cup each of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup in a bowl.  Add the juice of 1/2 of a lemon.  Baste the squash with this sweet, sweet nectar, and then pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, basting every five minutes or so.  Divide the remaining liquid between the two halves of squash, and add a largish chunk of butter to each one.  Bake for another 20 - 30 minutes until your squash is squishy.

As you can see, my squash ended up being nearly full of liquid.  I know that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  But it was sweet, sweet nectar, people!  Made with my tiny $30 bottle of balsamic vinegar!  What was I supposed to do, throw it out?  No!  No!  No!  I snorfled up the entire pool, and it was divine.  I’ll admit that I’m feeling a little ashamed of myself now, and more than a little greasy. 

I can live with that.

As good as it was, I just couldn’t eat the other half of the squash.  I am a thoughtful and generous woman, so I offered it to everyone in the house in turn.  There were no takers (the clods) so I scooped out the flesh and mashed it up with the juice, and I’ll eat it for breakfast. 

Mmmmm, squash.  

Mmmmm, sweet, sweet nectar.

Ewwwww, hummus!!!

That's what The Goobers said yesterday when I told them what was for lunch. Can you believe that? Well, they're young and don't know any better, and I won't hold it against them. After all, I didn't know I liked hummus myself until just a few months ago. I had tried it in restaurants and purchased little packages of it at the deli, but it all tasted "blah" to me. I was feeling a little bit depressed about it. Why did so many grown-ups I know like hummus? Why didn't I? What was wrong with me? Was I *gasp* unsophisticated? A clod?  An honorary member of my cousin JimBob's cornhole league?

When faced with such culinary dilemmas, I turn to my hero Ina Garten. Ina is great. She knows I don't want to travel over hill and dale looking for rose water or sassafras root or the eyelash of a yeti shed on a mountain top in the spring.  She knows clods have to start somewhere.  She knows I want to have the best possible hummus with the least possible effort.  Yep.  Ina gets it.

To make Ina's hummus, go get yourself a copy of The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.  To make my version of Ina's hummus, follow these instructions:

Dump a can of garbanzos (I like Goya), along with a splash of the liquid into the bowl of the food processor your husband bought you in observance of some major holiday.  Add the juice of one lemon, some kosher salt, two minced cloves of garlic, and a scant 1/3 cup of tahini.

Okay, it isn't as specialized as spring yeti eyelash, but tahini is definitely what I'd call exotic, at least in these parts. Luckily I managed to sweet talk The Man into taking me to a real grocery store the last time we were in Charleston.

Put in however much hot sauce you can handle (I like a goodly amount). Process the crap out of it and dump it in a bowl. If you want to be all fancy you can top it with olive oil and toasted pine nuts, but it isn't strictly necessary.  I ate my hummus with toasted pita bread chunks yesterday, but today I'll eat it with carrots and tomorrow I might eat it with pretzels. Hummus is versatile like that.

Thank you, Ina.  You really came through for me.  Sniff.