Paella

Tonight, I made paella. It's wonderful and easy and cheap and it makes everyone happy. I used shrimp and andouille sausage, but lots of things work. Combinations of seafood are common (like, maybe shrimp, clams and mussels) and they look really striking. I think having a few shrimp (maybe like 2 or 3 per person) and a decent amount of sausage is a good way to stretch it out. Chorizo or spicy Italian sausage are good as well. Or, you could do chicken and sausage, or chicken and shrimp. A quick epicurious search pulls up vegetarian paella (white beans and swiss chard, asparagus and sugar snaps), a turkey paella, even rabbit and artichoke. Snails are another traditional component.

Paella is a Spanish rice dish that is supposed to be cooked in a very thin, some would say very cheap, pan. Purists will insist that the title "Paella" requires a crunchy, almost burnt crust on the bottom of the pan. It's become a recurring theme in Top Chef (the TV show) for a contestant to make what they call paella. In most cases, they've used the high quality pans provided for them, and thus have produced a nice, evenly heated, perfectly cooked pan full of rice. This angers Chef Tom Collichio. In a few cases, the contestant has pulled this off (see: Ilan, Season 2, individual paellas, cooked in serving dishes, and not actual cookware. Clever, or lucky?). When this has happened, all the judges basically get off on this magnificent burnt rice. Padma Lakshmi, judge and host, delights in proding the crunchy bits with her fork, like an ethnic, stoner version of Amelie cracking the top of her creme brule, and she looks up and informs the viewers at home "the rice is soooo crunchy, you guys!"

But anyways. My "paella" did not have the crunchy bottum. I don't care for burnt rice, myself. I chopped up about 1 cup of onion and sauteed that till it was a little browned. I added in minced garlie (2 cloves), a big pinch of saffron and about 1/2 teaspoon of smoked spanish paprika. I used roasted red peppers from a jar, so I diced them and added them after the spices. (You'd add diced fresh bell pepper with the onions.) I poured in 2 cups of chicken broth (fish stock is good too), 1 cup of short-to-medium grain rice and an andouille sausage, halved and sliced. You bring the broth to boil, then lower the heat and cooked with the lid on for 15 minutes, till the rice is mostly cooked. Then I added the shrimp- I just layed them on top of the rice and pushed them into it so they were in the rice but not covered. If the rice looks dry, add more broth. Cover again and cook on very low heat till the shrimp are pink.

If you were using chicken, you would brown in in the pan before doing anything else, cooking it about halfway. Then, you'd add it with the rice and broth, letting it cook the rest of the way. Clams or mussels you'd add with the rice and broth. If you're using uncooked sausage, cook it with the onions and peppers. If (like I did) you havve cooked sausage, just add it with the rice so the flavor will infuse.

Saffron and Spanish Paprika are pretty strongly associated with paella. Saffron is amazingly expensive, and if I hadn't helped myself to my mom's supply, I'm sure I would not be using it in my own kitchen. I've made this with a little tumeric in place of saffron and been quite happy with the results. I think I even called it "Paella", not "Seafood and Sausage Rice Dish with Eclectic Blend of Spices and Without Bottom-Crust". It's very flexible- a 2:1 liquid:rice, as much meat or seafood as you like (or, as much as you have), and whatever vegetables seem appropriate (red or green bell peppers, tomato, green bean, peas, artichokes, asparagus...) This is a good dish for using vegetables that maybe aren't as great as they could be, whether they're canned or frozen or just leftover, because they'll be cooking in a really flavorful broth.

Roasting

I love making roast chicken, especially when it's cold outside. It looks gorgeous and it makes my apartment smell yummy. And you can do plenty of stuff with the chicken, including making stock. I got a chicken at the Christmas farmer's market yesterday. This is my first local chicken. I've been buying the organic free range chickens at the grocery store, even though it's a little more expensive, but considering I get like 4 or 5 meals out of it, it seems worthwhile to start with better quality chicken.

I rubbed the inside and outside of my little chicken with salt and sat it in my fridge all day. I rubbed it with canola oil and roasted it at 425, upside down for half an hour, then flipped back over for 15 minutes.

I also love roasting vegetables. Someone reminded me that, maybe a few months ago, I said cauliflower was the last thing I had yet to developed a taste for. I love roasting cauliflower; I love the browned, slightly caramelized outside that brings out that nuttiness. At the farmer's market, there was a spread of broccoli, white cauliflower and purple cauliflower. I am a sucker for heirloom-y, different looking vegetables. In the summer, this mostly concerns tomatoes- I love the wonky looking ones with weird protrusions and stripes. But i absolutely had to get a little of each, so I'd have a pile of green, white and purple roasted veggies. Thanks to my P.O.S oven, they ended up a little more roasted than planned. Still delicious, still kind of awesome looking-


I mean, seriously! That purple is insane! I was worried the color wouldn't be vibrant and awesone after blasting the shit out of it in a 450 degree oven, but that weird Cauliflower From Neptune color just got better.

(Random aside- on Top Chef, four teams had to prepare dishes based on "Old", "New", "Borrowed" or "Blue". Obviously blue is the hardest. How bad ass would it have been if they'd found piles of purple cauliflower and made some blue-violet cauliflower puree, and maybe a blue-cheese stuffed piece of meat? Really, they should have called me)

Oranges! So many oranges! 400 ORANGES!!!

I have, somehow, managed to acquire a huge box of oranges, the kind sold by high school fundraisers. There are So. Many. Of them. In 10 days, I'll be going home for about 3 weeks. It is my goal to make as big a dent in this stockpile of citrus before then. One orange has about 65 calories, some fiber, and all your vitamin C. I don't think it would be possible to eat too many oranges. I guess I'll find out.

First up, my new favorite drink- the Bronx Cocktail
1 1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz both dry and sweet vermouth
1 1/2 oz fresh orange juice
dash orange bitters

Next, some kind of salad. I really love cutting oranges or grapefruit into sections (or "supremes") and I'm going to get a lot of practice. I want to make a salad of orange supremes, mache, sliced radicchio and toasted pecans. I'll make up a dressing of orange juice, sherry vinegar and olive oil.

I've also found an interesting salad on Fine Cooking- thinly sliced red onion, fennel bulb, and orange segments are tossed with olive oil, lemon juice and mint. Or, stacking in pretty little layers could make for a glamorous presentation. Stay tuned.

Next I'll try this recipe where you throw whole slices of oranges, pith and peel and all, into a pot with chicken thighs and broth, where they cook down and thicken the broth.

This weekend, I'm going to make some version of duck a l'orange. I'm pretty excited about it. It's such a classic, and I don't think anything can go wrong with duck.

Another wonderful thing to do with fresh oranges is Orange Chicken, the fried food-court staple with the syrupy coating. When this has just been made, and the coating is still crisp and hot and the sauce has that fresh-squeezed goodness, it's pretty mindblowing.

I just can't think of any desserts....

caramelized onions

So, yesterday, I made one of the tastiest things I've made in a while. I made a personal pizza with caramelized onions, baby spinach, gruyere and parmesan, and prosciutto. No I'm really serious, it was the best pizza that I can remember having. And I used some shitty store bought crust, and my grocery store doesn't even have Bobili.

Caramelized onions are fucking amazing and they make everything better. It's especially nice when you cut the onions radially. Peel, cut in half, cut of the ends, and cut parallel to the core at different angles to make lotrs of long thin strands. Cook with just a little bit of oil and some salt over medium-low heat, stirring a lot. Don't be afraid of carring them a little as long as they don't actually burn.

And seriously, they make everything better. Dice them up and stir them into rice or pasta, even. Every sandwich is improved with caramelized onions. My brother loves homemade philly cheesesteaks with caramelized onions. Grilled cheese with provolone, mustard and caramelized onions is the greatest drunk food ever.

Thanksgiving comes with a conflict for foodies- the menu is characterized by traditionality, simplicity, and by its unchallenging appeal. Cooking magazines and Food Network shows have been showing reinventions of Thanksgiving and I really can't get behind it. Roasting a whole bird is a pretty wonderful thing, almost impossible to mess up unless you are actually retarded, and you can't beat the visual appeal.

That being said, I had a lot of fun putting together a Thanksgiving menu. (all recipes from or inspired by Fine Cooking)

Champagne-Rosemary Cocktails
Stuffed Mushrooms
Turkey Pate Crostini with Fried Sage
Smoked Trout

Local Farm Raised Roast Turkey
Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Gratin
Maple-Glazed Carrots and Shallots
Roasted Brussels Sprouts in Brown Butter-Dijon Dressing
Homemade Dinner Rolls
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans

Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie

Friday night, I wanted to make Turkey Shepard's Pie. I'd been looking forward to it all day, especially after running around in the cold. I heated up some of the turkey stock with some flour to thicken it and threw in a pile of shredded dark meat, the leftover carrots and shallots, and some chopped up green beans and cooked it on the stove till it looked thick and yummy. I moved it to two large ramekins and spread mashed potatoes on top and baked it for 20 minutes, till the stew was bubbling and the potatoes were starting to turn golden brown at the edges. It was kind of amazing.

Root Vegetables

I am a big believer in the "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants" approach. (Believer, not always a practitioner) It's not exactly hard in the summer, when farmer's markets and roadside stands are piled with vegetables that actually look more appealing than anything you see in a fast food commercial.

Winter is a little different. Not that I can't find tomatoes and eggplant and corn. And they're good. I mean, there's nothing wrong with them. They're probably 90% as good as the real thing, but the lacking 10% is noticeable. People got through winters before they had fresh spinach and tomatoes from Costa Rica, and they didn't do it eating starch and meat. What were they eating?

I had forgot about root vegetables! Yup, the botanical underground nutrient storage bin, the un-glamorous peasant fare unnoticed in the grocery store, rarely seen in a cookbook and never rearing its head on the restaurant menu.

Potatoes get such a bad rap. Yeah, carbs, glycemic index, whatever. It's almost miraculous, that you can dig this lump out of the ground and it's such an accessible source of nutrition ( alittle too accessible as for as blood sugar is concerned, but, you know, moderation....). Cool story- potatoes are indigenous to Urugay and Chile, close enough to the equator that there are basically no seasons, but mountainous (cold). Their indifference to the lengths of days, hours of sunlight, dramatic temperatures is unique- they grow anywhere, any time. Potatoes are a genetic rockstar. I think I've rhapsodized about my love of sweet potatoes before. It's like if you took a potato, carefully seasoned it, and added a multivitamin.

Carrots are the first thing you think of when you think of root vegetables. They're tasty, versatile, and full of vitamins. But there are these things, that look like carrots, except they're white, a fat.... Parsnips sound pretty lame and they looks like they couldn't possibly taste good.

I had dinner at a friend's house, and she made coq au vin with a parsnip purre. What a lovely healthy alternative to mashed potatoes! I thought. Jumping in to help peel, I realized that I haven't ever cooked and probably never eaten parsnips. Just peeling them, I couldn't beleive how aromatic they were- they smell like thyme, and fenel, and gin, and some kind of flower... How could some knoby sad looking root that grows deep underground taste so fresh and bright?

The puree was so much better than mashed potatoes. I had to investigate this. I had a recipe for a chicken braise with Brussels sprouts, carrots and parsnips. I meant to try it leaving out the parsnips (oh no!) but instead I doubled it up. It was great. I saw a few recipes for roasting parsnips. (I think all winter vegetables are better roasted, especially brusselss sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, squash...) I liked the idea of cutting it into matchsticks and eating them like fries. I cut the core out of a few parsnips, cut them into sticks about 2 inches long, 1/2 inch thick, and tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper and cayenne. Roasted at 425 for about 15-20 minutes, the sitcks got a little brown and caramelized around the edges. I curled up in an armchair with a plate of parsnip fries, a bit of balsamic vineagar to dip them in, and an episode of Mad Men. Best snack food ever.

Whole Grain Goodness

Cooking with whole grains seems to be increasingly popular. They have the reputation of being the stuff of vegan health nuts with eating habits that border on self-punishing. But whole grains seem more like an indulgence, like an elevated complex version of the same old starches.

But first- eating whole grains is so healthy! It doesn't seem to have picked up the popularity I think it deserves, maybe the low carb focus is to blame. But for glycemic index based diets like South Beach, the Mediterranean Diet, whole grains are perfect. Brown rice, quinoa, barley and bulgur all have glycemic indexes in the range of 40-50, while white rice and pasta are around 80, and a baked potato is 150. But more importantly, that whole-grainy-ness is loaded with vitamins and minerals and fiber. Diets high in whole grains were shown to reduce BMI, prevent heart attacks, prevent strokes, improve skin, pretty much everything you could want.

The best thing is that whole grains taste better than refined carbs. They have this robust chewey nuttiness, which makes every dish they're a part of more well rounded, with a more complex flavor profile.

Brown rice is the most familliar whole grain. It has the reputation of being hard to cook because it has to cook for much longer. It takes longer but no more effort. You can put a pot of brown rice on the stove and go take a shower, watch your tv show or whatever, and get together whatever else you're going to eat. I've recently realized that brown rice actually works quite well for a pilaf- just needs a longer cooking time. I also like to increase the rice:liquid ratio- I d0 1:2 1/2. I've been enamored of middle eastern/mediteranean flavors in rice pilafs. Two recipes from Fine Cooking are competing for the Pilaf Prize- one has saffron, roasted red peppers (from a jar is the way to go for this), fresh parsley and slivered almonds. The other has caramelized onions, allspice and cinnamon, dried cherries, orange zest and pistachios- it's not too sweet but it feels like a dessert. Brown rice works well for a pilaf because the grain holds together instead of getting soft and mushy, giving you that nice fluffiness.

Quinoa is my big indulgence- at $6 for a little box, I can't use it as a substitute for rice like I'd like to. Quinoa is mind blowingly healthy- not actually a grain, but a seed, quinoa is 20% protein by mass, making it nutritionally more like a bean, or maybe flaxseed. But quinoa has the taste and texture of couscous (couscous has the nutritional value of pasta). For no paticular reason, I love quinoa with Indian food, to soak up the great sauces. And quinoa cooks in less than 10 minutes, faster than white rice and pasta. I mean, it's a miracle food. And that's probably why it's $6.50 for 12 oz.

Barley is a winner. Again, cooks up fast (10 minutes), has that sweet, nutty flavor and just the right chewiness. It's great in any soup in place of pasta or rice. But barley risotto is a discovery that has improved my quality of life. I will probably make this like twice a month. I saute some mushrooms (I use cremini and shitakes), while I'm cooking some barley in chicken broth (1:2 ratio). I tear up a big pile of kale and mix that in with the barley just before it's done, before all the broth is totally absorbed. I pile that in a big bowl and top it with the mushrooms. Parsley or parmasean would be great additions. Barley cooked this way, with baby spinach and lemon juice would be really nice with a piece of fish.

Offal!

For someone who makes an effort to eat vegetarian most of the time, I really love playing with meat. When I worked in a restaurant, during prep I'd try to trade with the other line cooks to get the raw-meat handling jobs that no one else wanted to do. Most people seem to be turned off by food that looks like a part of a dead animal. I'm totally cool with it. It is a dead animal, and there's nothing wrong with that.

My first significant culinary memory was when I was 8 and I made a roast chicken with stuffing. I wasn't just helping Mom by stirring the sauce, it was my meal from start to finish. (At least that's how I saw it at the time. I was 8, I'm sure I had a lot of help.) I learned that there were lots of parts of chicken- there were the obvious structural components, and then inside there were these slimy bloody organs. Seriously, that's a heart! That I just pulled out of a chicken! With my hand!

While I was standing on my little stool, gleefully elbows deep in my dissection, my little friend from down the street had ridden his bike over to hang out. I couldn't wait to show him what I found in the chicken. "Look, that's the heart, and that's the...what is it, mom? The liver. you can eat it." And that was enough to send him running out the door.

When I went to France this summer, I was lucky enough to have a very authentic gastronomical experience. Really traditional European cuisine seems to feature more offal, or at least more of the animal that you see in the US. Always inclined to order the thing I haven't had before, I ordered tete de veau (head of veal) at a restaurant, much to the delight of my European travel companion. Our waiter played the roll of arrogant frenchman to a tee- "Do you know what zat eez?" After delivery our meal, he checked back periodically to see if that Americainne knew what she'd gotten herself into. I think tete de veau is primarily the thymus glands, or sweetbreads. They're so soft and savory, the unctuousness that you'd expect from an internal organ is barely there they practically melt in your mouth.

Today I bought a little roaster chicken and I was very excited about it. I forgot that I was going get a handful of organs when I reached into the little guy. I set that aside and put my chicken and veggies together, with the intesnsion of making a stock out of all of it. But while my chicken roasted, that liver was calling my name. I'm not sure I've ever eaten liver. I don't think I know anyone who likes liver. But they look like they'd be kind of amazing, right?

Ok, that might not be a universal reaction. But in spite of never having eaten liver that I or anyone else prepared, I had to fry it up and see what happened. I chopped in up and spread it on crostini with sauteed onions and it was amazing. And, I have all the iron I need for a week.

And like they were reading my mind, Iron Chef America picks offal as the secret ingrediant. Well played.

Soup!

It was unseasonably warm and sunny the past two weeks and I was not feeling it. In mid October, I don't want to have to deal with highs of 80 and constant sunshine. I'm looking longingly at leather boots and big sweaters. I'm so over sundresses.

The weather was throwing off my cooking as well. I have about 10 soup recipes I've been reading longingly at work, refreshing the Weather Channel page trying to see when it turns into fall. French onion soup, butternut squash with cumin and coriander, curried carrot soup, southwest tomato, miso soup, lentil soup.... And a recently bought an adorable little soup tureen-


Earlier this week I made a late-summer soup, an attempt to compromise with the weather. I made a bouillabaisse with tomato and corn. The recipe is intended to use fresh-from-the-farm heirloom tomatoes and sweet corn off the cob, which is lovely, but substituting two 14 0z cans of diced tomatoes and half a bag of frozen corn didn't do any harm. Cooked a little garlic in some olive oil, threw in canned tomatoes, a cup of white wine, a can of chicken broth, and a pinch of saffron. (Yeah, saffron is stupid expensive. I wouldn't recommend running out and spending your week's food budget on it to make this soup. If you have it, awesome.) Throw in a pound of some seafood- I used cod, cut up in chunks. You can use halibut, shrimp, bay scallops, mussels, or a combination there of. After the fish is cooked through, stir in corn.


And now it's nice and cold outside. Kinda rainy too. It seemed like a good day to try out my gorgeous new Wusthof chef's knife to chop up a big pile of vegetables for a minestrone. I diced up a medium onion, two stalks of celery, a big carrot and 3 cloves of garlic to make a standard mirepoix. Nice low and slow heat lets the onions caramelize a little, giving the soup amazing depth. The Fine Cooking recipe I was sort of following called for chopped savoy cabbage, but standing in the supermarket, the kale sitting next to the cabbage looked a lot more appealing. And I didn't have to buy a basketball-sized head of it. (And I freaking love kale.) After the chopped kale cooked down I added a can of diced tomatoes and 3 cups of chicken broth. Instead of pasta, I added some barley. I love whole grains, they have that dense chewy texture and nutty flavor. To pump it up, I threw in the rinds off of a wedge of Parmesan, a really cool way to give it more flavor. After simmering for a while I added in a can of kidney beans.



With vegetable broth, this is a really great well rounded vegetarian meal. Between the barley, the kidney beans, and the kale, this couldn't really be any more nutritious.

Recession Cooking (or, things I was already doing)

Everybody's seen these tips on how to spend less money on food, and being a poor student, I'll click on it every time. What do they say?

"Cook in your home instead of going to restaurants or ordering in" Check. I might not always cook the cheapest stuff, but for the price of pizza I can have a salmon fillet with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach and have money left over for wine.

"Don't throw out food" Check. I've developed a complex about throwing out food, to the point where I will go out and buy 4 other ingredients to use up the cilantro or something like that.

"Make a big pot of something on the weekend to eat all week and take for lunches" Check. Almost everything I make.

"Eat less meat" Check. Beans are filling, and a can is like a dollar.

"Buy things like meat, chicken and fish when it's on sale and freeze it" Check for sure. I'm all about that; I'm looking at you, tilapia for $3.99/lb, Buy 1 get 1 free frozen shrimp, half-price organic chicken... This might be a better strategy for families. I have more meat and fish in my freezer than I am likely to eat in a month.

"Buy local produce" Check... but it's tricky. My yuppy heart melts as I walk into a place like Eastern Market in DC, the Ferry Building in San Francisco, Italian Market in Philly or even the Merchant Square Farmer's Market here in Williamsburg. You know, the kind of place with hand made fresh mozzarella and fresh picked lump crabmeat from the Chesapeake and homemade mushroom ravioli. The kind of place with lots of dogs and women in sundresses and heels, and there are children that beg their moms to buy lima beans and eggplants. No, I'm serious. The point is, you pay for this trip to crazy-puppy-baby-sundress-land. Or, you can find the guy selling produce out of his truck. That guy is awesome and he has the best peaches.

"Bring your lunch instead of buying it" Check...90% of the time. This is hard for the same reason quitting smoking is hard (well, almost). I miss taking walks to Wawa for lunch to get out of the lab, out of the air conditioning. Wawa salads are a good deal, but I can't get out of there without the biggest diet coke possible, fruit salad or a pretzel, and I can often be talked into a lunchtime beer. I make better decisions in the morning.

"Instead of buying pre-cut vegetables at the supermarket, buy whole vegetables and cut them yourself" Wait, people actually buy that shit? Why would anyone do that? It'll go bad immediately, if it hasn't already. Also, 4 times the price. That is some bourgeoisie shit.

"Bring coffee to work instead of buying it" ... I try. I just love those paper cups, and having one less thing to wash. And again, I just want an excuse to take an afternoon walk to the coffee shop. How about I just go 3 times a week? And I go to the cheap place? And I get a small coffee instead of large latte?

"Cut out non essentials, like desserts, wine, beer, and cocktails" Eh, I got most of others. Besides, I bought the wine for the soup.

I think my Moroccan Stew and I are going to be very happy together.

SometimesI come across a recipe that sounds like it couldn't possibly go wrong. The ingredient list looks like a compilation of my favorite things, it looks easy, cheap, healthy, delicious, like the Food I Like to Eat. I start getting my hopes up, because this dish has everything I want. For a while, I'm too enticed by the gorgeous picture and the promise of a new favorite that I'm scared to go ahead and risk ruining the illusion. What if it just doesn't work?

One was this Moroccan Vegetable Ragout from Fine Cooking. It has kale (which I love), chickpeas (which I love even more), olives (mmm yay) and sweet potatoes (which is probably one of my top 5 ingrediants. Last time I went to a steakhouse, they had baked sweet potato with honey butter, and I forget about my steak for a while). I had a really ambivalent reaction to this recipe- all the ingredients are so full-flavored, will they work together? On the other hand, there are not a lot of spices or fresh herbs- maybe everything will muddle together?

So I finally worked up the nerve to go for it. The assembly was quick and easy- other than chopping an onion and peeling and dicing two sweet potatoes, there was no prep. Cook onions, dump in everything else, simmer for a while, stir in ripped up kale. The recipe claims to serve 3-4, but it looked like at least 5, maybe 6 generous servings. Fine Cooking says a serving (1/3 - 1/4) is 290 calories, which puts one of my servings at, like, nothing. The recipe is straightforward-

Medium onion, chopped
olive oil
cinnamon and cumin
2 cups diced sweet potatoes (2 potatoes)
can of chickpeas
can of diced tomatoes
1/2 cup pitted green olives
3/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 tsp honey
1/2 lb kale

I used more like 1 pound of kale, which was a good choice. This was everything I wanted it to be. Those leafy greens, the richness of the sweet potatoes, with the briny olives to offset them, all wrapped in this roasted tomato-caramelized onion-citrusy-smokey sauce. I couldn't ask for more from a first try at a recipe. It had everything I know I want, but so exotic and different and enticing. I mean, what a great vehicle for kale. Being the nutritional rockstar it is, it's sometimes hard to get excited about it. It's at least as deleicious as any other veggie, but all the noise about how healthy it is ecplipses it's other merits, making it seem about as sexy as a multivitamin. The dessert-like undertones of the dish make it feel luxurious- the orange juice, the cinnamon...

My only hesitation is that it's almost too smooth. I'd certainly leave out the honey next time. And as I predicted, there could be more spice. Next time I'll read up on a traditional ras al hanout, something I know nothing about (not even the spelling) but it sounds cool and edgey. This dish is almost too smooth and sweet, and as I'm eating it, I keep expecting a little more heat. But I took it slow for now- I've ruined many a dish by dumping in a pile of cayenne or sriarcha on the first bite. I'll take it slow with my new Moroccan paramour.

But I don't like mushrooms.

As I think I've mentioned before, I have very little patience with people who say things like "I don't like (some ingredient)". If you're older than 15 you should be over the whole petulant power struggle. But I had a few things myself that I didn't care for.

I hated olives. They always seemed to sneak up on me in a pizza or a pasta and punch me in the palette. (I hated pickles for a similar reason- my most notable experiences with pickles was when I forgot to take them out of Happy Meal burgers and they would suddenly pop up, the slimy sour little fuckers.) Because I knew I didn't like olives, I only encountered them by accident, like in the Everything Pizza. I picked off the ones on the top, but I really liked the Everything Pizza, it just had more taste than the cheese or peperoni we ordered with it. I think it was the olives.

A little over a year ago, I had a summer internship in DC and my friends from home came to visit me. We did museums and sightseeing all day, and I was starving by the time we decided to get dinner. We went to an Italian place in Dupont Circle that was probably out of our price range, and if it hadn't been 5 pm we would have had a hard time getting a table, cause we looked like raggedy college students. they brought us some beautiful rustic chew bread and a plate of kalamata olive tapenade. Now, I don't like olives, you see, but this just looked so exotic and sophisticated and kind of subversive, this unctuous, subterranean purple spread. My vegetarian friend to my left dug right in, and, surprising myself, I followed her. My picky-eater friend to my right spread a monolayer on her bread, took a tiny bite, made a disgusted face and spit it out. No really. But this stuff was amazing- it didn't hurt that I was starving, but I couldn't believe the depth of taste in this simple stuff. Now that I know what I'm getting into, I'm always looking out for recipes with olives- my favorite Greek salad just got so much better. And a week ago, I made a pasta dish from Fine cooking with canned tomato, artichoke hearts, and kalamata olives. This is in my top 5 pasta dishes. I'm not sure I've ever been so satiated by the recommended serving size of pasta (2 oz).

Next came eggplant. When I was younger, I think I was put off by the texture and the beigey-ness. Even the undeniable delicious baba ganough has a weird sounding name and a weirder appearance. My newfound love for eggplant grew over time, but I think again I was seduced by the color. I liked buying them at the farmer's market, I liked having them in my fruit and veggie bowl on the counter. That gleaming dark purple is hard to say no to. I want a sweater dress in Eggplant. I'm always a little sad when I have to peel away that skin. Some of my favorite eggplant recipes include, of course, baba ganough. One of my favorite (and pretty!) eggplant dishes is Eggplant Cannelloni. Slice eggplant lengthwise, broil both sides for 5-10 minutes per side. Spread with cheese (mixture of goat cheese and mozzarella and basil is great), roll up and bake till warmed through (10 minutes). Eat with tomato sauce. Or tomatoes.

But I never thought I'd learn to love mushrooms. I didn't mean to, and I still haven't quite accepted it. It's like that timed I hooked up with this really fratty cool kid from Penn State thinking there was no way we'd get along, and ended up totally falling for him? It's kind of like that. I want to tell my mom about this pad thai with mushrooms I made this weekend, or this amazing potato mushroom gratin I made for dinner tonight, she, or anyone else, will ask "But I thought you didn't like mushrooms?" Dude, I know right! I'm almost afraid to admit it. I'm not sure how this happened, this mushroom business. They snuck up on me, and suddenly I'm searching them out. Two weeks ago, I went to the melting pot with my family and friends (I know, I know, Melting Pot? But between the Picky Eater Friend, the Vegetarian Friend, and the Even Pickier 16 year old brother, this was a good choice) and I found myself sneaking mushrooms off of my friend's plate. They weren't even exotic enough to make me feel cool, just plain old white button mushrooms, but cooked in that coq au vin bouillon, they were amazing.

I couldn't get into the idea of a beige food. But now that it's almost kind of feeling like fall, and as the economy continues to suck at life, creamy beige comfort food is increasingly attractive.

Cauliflower is the only thing I can think of that I have yet to develop an appreciation for. I think it was their mashed potato impersonation that turned me off. But give it time. In a few months I might be making every version of cauliflower I can come up with.

Rice

I’ve been trying to decide what my favorite starch is. It’s an odd question, I know. If I asked a friend their favorite starch, I don’t think they would know what I was talking about. What I mean is, between things like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, corn, and other grains, which is your favorite? I’m inclined to be a tool and say something like “Quinoa!” “Polenta!” But I think really it’s rice.

A number of considerations went in to the decision to call rice the favorite. The ultimate starch would have to be something that is recognizable as a plant product. Pasta is lovely, but homogenous mass and perfect little shapes always seem to be more “food product” than just “food”. This also rules out bread. Not that there is anything wrong with bread or pasta, but making a sandwich or pasta dish feels more like assembling than cooking. The Perfect Starch should not require mixing into dough, extruding from a machine, and then boiling in water. Potatoes take the lead in this respect- a starch that is literally dug up and ready to cook and eat. For this fact, and because the title includes the sweet potato (OMG I love sweet potatoes) potatoes are a close second to rice

I can’t think of any other ingredient that is so prevalent in so many very different cuisines. I mean, what other intersection is there between, say, South American food and Japanese? My favorite starch would have to be versatile as well. While pasta is always pasta, rice can be a creamy risotto, a sushi roll, paella or pilaf. It’s ideal for the most important use of starch- soaking up some delicious sauce. Hell, you can even make dessert out of it.

To be fair, white rice is not a nutritional powerhouse, or even equivalent to some more exotic whole grains. But brown rice is a perfectly fine substitute much of the time, and has a nice helping of nutrients and fiber. Don’t be put off by the longer cooking time. It’s not a race. And that stuff cooks itself, it’s as much work as ordering a pizza and waiting 40 minutes for it to be delivered. And please, please, never get this ready-rice crap. It cooks in 2 minutes in the microwave because it’s been stripped of every last bit of fiber or plant-like material. But rice, even the fluffy white kind, when combined with beans as a complete protein, like meat.

I’ve recently gotten really into the “pilaf” method of cooking rice where the rice is sautéed in some oil till it’s almost golden, and then cooked in something besides water, and then tossed with a vegetable or legume. This sauteeing slows the absorption of liquid, so the rice grains keep their shape. With the exception of the cilantro in the Green Rice, these all have the benefit of being "pantry dishes"- no fresh ingredients necessary

Red Rice

2 cloves garlic

½ white onion

2 Tbs olive oil

1 cup basmati rice

14 oz can whole tomatoes

Chili powder or hot sauce to taste

½ of a 1 lb bag of carrots, peas, and corn mixture

Puree canned tomatoes with garlic and onion, and add water to equal 2 cups of liquid. This is easiest with a stick blender. If you don’t have one, you should think about getting one, but in the meantime a blender or food processor is fine. If, like me, you have a stick blender but not a dishwasher, you can blend the tomatoes in the can. You’re welcome. Heat oil in saucepan with a good lid. Nonstick is good. When oil is hot (hot as in water sizzles when it’s dropped in, not hot like shimmering like when you pan sear fish) add the rice and saute, stirring, about 3-5 minutes. This cooks the outer shell of the grain so that it doesn’t absorb liquid as quickly later on. The bubbling sound will be different after you’ve done this long enough. Less hissy, more snap-crackle-pop.

Add the tomato mixture. (If you’re using the in-the-can method of blending, you can add half the tomato stuff, then blend the other half with the garlic, onion, and ¼ cup of water and chili powder or hot sauce.) Cook, with the lid on, till the liquid is almost all absorbed. If all the liquid is absorbed and you taste a grain and it could stand to cook for longer, add more water.

Turn off heat and stir in as much of the veggie mix as you’d like. I like about 1/3 of the 1 lb bag. Let it sit for a few minutes so the frozen veggies are heated through. Ooh look how pretty.

You can use just peas if you want. I’d like to try it with corn and lima beans sometime. Adding shredded chicken makes in a meal, or you could add beans.

Green Rice

2 cloves garlic

½ small white onion

½ lb package frozen spinach, thawed

¼ cup cilantro, loosely packed

1 ½ cups chicken or vegetable stock

2 Tbs oil

1 cup basmati rice

Puree garlic, onion, spinach, cilantro and chicken broth in food processor. Heat oil in saucepan that has a good lid. Nonstick is good. When oil is hot (hot as in water sizzles when it’s dropped in, not hot like shimmering like when you pan sear fish) add the rice and saute till golden, stirring, about 3-5 minutes. Add spinach mixture and cook, covered, until liquid is absorbed, checking to make sure rice is cooked though.

Yellow Rice

½ teaspoon turmeric

1 tsp cumin

2 Tbs oil

1 cup rice

2 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water

Any combination of peas, black beans, diced roasted red peppers

Heat oil and spices till oil is hot. Add rice and sauté. Add stock or water and cover, cooking on medium heat till liquid is absorbed. Toss with peas, black beans and/or red pepper.

Fish

I love fish. I think it's ideal for living by yourself- it's easy to cook just one fillet or take as many shrimp as you like, and it's got all those lovely omega 3's and it's so versitile.

Last night I made dinner for some friends- I made some beautiful fresh Summer Rolls with shrimp, soy braised kabocha squash and salmon in crispy rice paper with a spicy mirin glaze. It would have been one of my favorite meals I've ever made, if I hadn't overcooked the salmon (leaving them in a warm oven for 20 minutes was, obviously, a bad choice. Champagne will do that.)

I need to branch out from salmon and tuna. Halibut and Chilean Sea Bass are wonderful, but not so easy for me to find. Those flat, pale slabs of tilapia never look that exciting next to thick pink fillets but at $4 a pound for tilapia and $10 for salmon, diversifying the fish menu might be a good idea.

The nice thing about those broad, flat pieces is that the high surface area : volume means that a spice rub, marinade, herbed crust, breading or any other coating does a lot. Also means that they cook quickly, which means I can eat them sooner. To go with some Indian spinach (saag), I rubbed a filet with curry powder and corriander, and sauteed in oil. (about 1.5-2 minutes per side) With a mexican chopped salad, I had a tilapia filet coated with a corn meal-cummin-chili powder coating. Tonight I had it with chopped parsely and mint pressed on the surface and dredged in flour, sauteed in butter and oil.

The light flour coating is really perfect- it makes this monolayer of a crisp shell, but not as rich as actually breading. You could use any combination of herbs- I bet chives, tarragon or cilantro would be excellent. And even cooked in some oil, with a little flour, it's very healthy- tilapia is about 220 calories in an 8 oz filet, while the same amount of salmon is 480 calories.

So, I think I was wrong to overlook tilapia for size-ist reasons. Next to try- cod, snapper, sole, haddock...

Rotisserie Chicken

There are a few things I keep hearing on TV that make me want to throw something at it. Carrie Bradshaw's monologues, Blayne on Project Runway's use and abuse of the suffix "-licious," those ads that try to argue that high fructose corn syrup is good for you because it's made from corn, any mention of or statement by Sarah Palin...

But the commercials that make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills are the fast food ones that present the idea that their chicken whatevers are healthy because they use all white meat chicken. There's always a pretty young mom, who is a Good Mom, because she would only feed her children white meat chicken. McDonalds, sure, but it's white meat. What is this? Who decided that breast meat was the only part it was ok to eat? Ok, sure, white meat has less fat, but that shit is deep fried! It just absorbs all of that fat, so instead of the normal chicken fat that you're meant to eat, you have lean chicken soaked in partially hydrogenated soybean oil. And if this was actual chicken breast that was breaded and fried I could maybe tolerate this claim, but it's about 10 steps removed from a chicken- it's been cooked, ground to a paste, bleached (all white!) and extruded through a tube and pressed into a patty-shaped mold. To meet the demand for chicken breast, the chickens are castrated and feed piles of estrogen so they grow enormous breast muscles, which they certainly can't use because they're stuffed in boxes, which is good because actually using those muscles tends to make them not quite as white a pristine. And as long as only 1/5 of the meat is useable, of course 5 times as many chickens need to be produced. So, kids, enjoy those chicken patties, and enjoy getting your period when you're 7, girls. "Mmm all white meat patties! Thanks mom!"

It's probably more upsetting that this enormous distance from where the meat comes from (the animal) and what people want to see when they eat is considered so normal. I've met too many people who say that they love eating meat but they won't eat anything on a bone, or anything that has a shape suggesting it was once a body part. How is this remotely ethical?

I'm not a vegetarian, it's jsut not going to happen. But I'd like to think I have an appreciation for where meat comes from. But I'm still a student, and when I stand in the grocerey store comparing prices on organic and store brand chicken, the wallet often wins.

But I can at least feel like I've gotten as much out of a chicken as I can. This morning I bought a rotisserie chicken, without any real plans for it. I stripped of all of the dark meat first and made a chili from a Fine Cooking recipe with white beans, chipotles, and canned tomatoes. I shredded the rest of the white meat, mixed it with some scallions and tomatoes and mayo, and made a chicken salad vastly superior to the crap I had for lunch from Wawa last week. The rest I threw in a pot with a few sprigs of parsely, bay leaves, the stumpy end of a small head of romaine. I've been planning on making tomatillo soup, from Kalyn's Kitchen, and this will save me having to buy the stock. I've never made chicken stock before; for some reason, I thought it would be hard. I think I'll be doing it a lot more, if only for the way it has made my apartment smell.

So, I've got an amazing chili, 2 cups of chicken salad, and soon, a quart of soup, 6-8 meals. Everything that went into all three probably cost between $10 and $15.

The End of Carbs

My brother asked me, “Why don’t we eat like, corn on the cob, or ribs, or mashed potatoes or any of that other stuff we used to eat?” Good question.

I blame the South Beach Diet. When I was about 14, there was this book called the South Beach Diet that appeared in my house. I think we bought it at Costco, of all places. I was old enough to care about diets (although too young to actually follow one), and a proficient cook, so I flipped through it. Turns out some of what I believed to be vegetables were going to give me diabetes. Also, white bread is worse for you than heroin. I found the recipes much more interesting, but puzzling. There was a salmon filet with rosemary and garlic, my favorite greek salad recipe, and seared rare tuna with the best spice rub I’ve found for it yet. Then there were some real horrors. For dessert, SBD recommends fat free ricotta cheese mixed with Splenda. To call this dessert was laughable; we could not get this stuff down. Why was this garbage in the same book as my beloved Greek Salad? In place of mashed potatoes there was this strange puree of cauliflower, which must have been designed to disappoint, to raise our hopes and make us believe for a second that we were having mashed potatoes. The cauliflower stuff didn’t last either, but real mashed potatoes only come out at Thanksgiving.

Our parents lost weight, but the more lasting effect was the factioning of family dinner. My brother was not going to eat either pureed cauliflower or salmon, so he ate more frozen macaroni and cheese or bagel bites, or sometimes he and I would have our own dinner. Now that it’s just my mom and brother, separate meals are standard.

We needed one summertime family dinner while I was home. Ribs were his request, along with the South Beach villain corn on the cob. I remembered making the barbeque sauce years ago from this amazing page-long recipe that included dried ancho chili and a 2 cups of bourbon. This time, I also took on the grilling and the trimming and minor butchering, which I absolutely love. Something about taking apart a huge piece of raw meat is very satisfying, probably evolutionarily ingrained. Gnawing corn from a cob or ripping meat from a bone is so enjoyable because it reminds us where our food came from- corn came from those stalks filling the fields down the road, and meat comes off a bone, from an animal, not from a grocery store bin in a shrink wrapped package.

I also made a favorite summer side, cucumber salad. The fact that I had a mandolin made it impossible to resist. Cucumbers are peeled, seeded, and sliced thin (less than 1/8 of an inch). The sliced cucumber is salted (I used 2 Tbs for 4 cups) and sits for a few hours while the salt pulls the water out. When the slices are soft, rinse and squeeze out the water with a dishtowel. 4 cups will be reduced to about 2. Tossed with just a tablespoon of mayonnaise or plain yogurt and lots of black pepper, this makes a great cold counterpoint for the spicy smoky ribs. You can also add onions (before salting) or feta (at the end), but it’s very nice by itself.

Bad Vegetarian

I could be described as gastronomically unscrupulous. I flirt shamelessly with vegetarianism and go so far as to imply that we’re “getting serious,” slipping anecdotes of our adventures into conversation almost too readily. I publicly rave about nutrient rich veggies and shudder when I describe the hormone laden beef and chicken of my sordid past. I over-optimistically load up on kale and chickpeas and quinoa. I suspect we have a real future together.

But a trip home for the weekend or a visit from a friend and I find myself in a steakhouse with sexy lighting and a martini on my right, and words like “protein”, “iron”, “Atkins”, “evolution” and “omnivore” are playing on repeat.

“New York Strip, rare. Yeah, rare. Thanks”

Slut.

When I walk into my apartment, my cans of beans are dutifully standing guard and my tomatoes gleam at me innocently, and I feel a little guilty. I probably don’t deserve them, loose woman that I am. And maybe we were moving too fast; I picked up a box of Boca Burgers in the grocery store the other day. Hormones, antibiotics, slaughterhouses, The Jungle… I still don’t want to be the kind of person who eats that shit. I wouldn’t let such an exhilarating affaire complacently slide into suburban ennui.