Archive | Uncategorized RSS feed for this section

Grilled Steak (and the secrets of spice rub penetration)

14 Jul

After several days of hospital cafeteria food (which is quite expensive, mostly awful, and just not home-made), my mom was hankering for some steak. So as soon as my dad got out of said hospital, she bought some U.S.D.A. Choice top loin and we planned a Fourth of July celebration (see Perfect Grilled Fish and Grilled Potato Disks).

The scoring of the meat is subtle, yet critical (a bit like the unsung heroes of the clean-up crew….)

And then I, who had a hankering to do some fun experimenting with my dad now that he was out of danger, proceeded to screw up her day.

Once the paste is on, give it awhile to adhere and penetrate

“There’s this interesting Cook’s Illustrated technique I want to try…” begins the conversation, and next thing you know, Pedro’s on it with me, we are mucking about (dirtying kitchen stuff which she is mostly in charge of cleaning, because he does the cooking – and gets the glory, I might add. The cleaner-uppers are always undersung.) and everything is fun again. For us.

And penetrate some more while you prep other things

Except that —  his crazy-ass diet means he’s not gonna eat it, and since he’s cooking the fish from across the street (see Perfect Grilled Fish), me and Leandro are not going to eat it, so really, none of us had any business getting elaborate with Myrna’s steak craving. A bit of pepper and salt and the woman would’ve been happy. But far be it for Natalia and Pedro to leave well enough alone…

So we did this gussied-up steak and she hated it. Hated it. Almost spun out. I almost spun out.It had been quite a week and we were all close to spinning out, except that it was Fourth of July and we reeled it in and had a wonderful day, once we remembered what we were about.

I really liked it and Leandro ate the leftovers the next day (once the fish was gone) and proclaimed it The Best Steak Ever, and Padushi and Mommy the Best Cooks Ever… so I am sharing it with you.

The important secret here is that the scoring and the paste add flavor and depth,  AND make the rub stay on! Feel free to experiment with your own spice rub combinations, but be warned that the fish sauce is salty, so UNDERSALT with the rest.

And the next time, I promise, promise, promise Myrna to Keep It Simple. KISS, KISS, KISS.

And for those of you out there, a reminder. Don’t hug the cook without hugging the people who clean up after the cook!

Yeah, baby

Grilled Spice-Rubbed Steak

Steak:

1.5 lbs beef top loin in two steaks

Scored in a crosshatch, about 1/16th inch deep and ½ inch apart

Paste:

2 tsp tomato paste

2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp adobo powder

Spice rub:

¼ tsp rosemary

¼ tsp turmeric

10 black peppercorns

1 clove

Mix all ingredients of paste together. Spread evenly over both sides of steaks. Set aside to rest an hour. (In the fridge, if you must. On the counter if you don’t worry so much about such things).

Crush all ingredients of spice rub together in a mortar and pestle. When steak has rested, sprinkle evenly over all sides of steaks. Rub in (this is a rub, after all).

Cook on a hot grill, about five minutes each side, depending on thickness of steak, heat of grill and desired doneness. Allow to rest before serving and accompany with simple sides that don’t compete.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Grilled Potato Disks (Like fries, only better!)

12 Jul

French fries are such a temptation, especially on the way back from the beach in the summer, when your mouth is salty, and the kids are encrusted with sand, and the sun is hot and you are tasting those carefree high school memories and suddenly you are driving past All-American Burger with all those crowds of similarly sand and salt encrusted summer folks lined up for their Quarter Pounder with Cheese and Fries…well, how could you not?

Well Pedro (yes, he of the crazy-ass diet) has come up with a worthy alternative that you can do on the grill at home. These grilled potato disks are crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, and just seasoned enough to not need much else. They are my mom’s new favorite; sort of French fries with virtue. Because they are so simple, they go with virtually anything on the regular summer grill menu – burgers, steaks, fish, corn. Love it!

Grilled Potato Disks (Like fries, only better!)

1 Tbs olive oil

½ tsp Adobo powder

3 medium potatoes (Yukon Gold preferred), peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

While the grill is heating up, in a bowl, stir adobo and olive oil together. Brush the potatoes with the oil mixture and lay on grill, reserving  extra oil. Using tongs , take potatoes off grill when they begin to brown, about five minutes (as they will be spread over the whole grill, you will need to judge hotter and colder parts and shift potatoes accordingly). Dip them in the oil mixture, shake excess off gently and lay them back on the grill for another five minutes or so, until nicely browned. Serve sprinkled with salt, with ketchup or with mayo-chipo-ketchup.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Perfect Grilled Fish Filets by Pedro (Lazarus story included)

8 Jul

You might call it Striped Bass CPR. Or The Fish That Resuscitates. Or Grilled Fish Worth Coming Back For…

Fish after 15 minutes in lemon juice – note the edges turning white

Our neighbor , Scott,  goes fishing a few times a year and comes back with heaps of striped bass or blackfish for his freezer. Scott and his wife, Teresa, always run over a plastic ziploc bag with a pound or so for us, which we try to cook up gratefully and immediately. It freezes well, but there is nothing like the freshness and beautiful texture of fish practically still flapping.

Grill pan we use for fish and small cut vegetables

Last week, my dad had a heart attack on the very day Teresa called me about bringing the fish over.

My mom and I were pretty preoccupied, as you might imagine, but not too preoccupied to say no to the fish. We believed that the old man would be coming home to eat it  — despite the heart attack and the strictures of his crazy-ass diet — but we didn’t quite know when.  And even if he decided to stay on the crazy-ass diet upon return from the hospital, well, he would still have to prepare it for us, wouldn’t he? Someone has to; this is one of the oddball, selfish, inexplicable thoughts that strike you when you are drowning in the panic that you are about to lose someone dear: “He can’t die! I don’t know how to work that grill!”

So we stuck the fish in the freezer to keep it fresh for his eventual return. “He’s got to come back. There is striped bass waiting for him in the freezer!” There was a bit of “He has to come back; he hasn’t taken Leandro fishing yet” as well. The strange logic of hope and faith, as if a to-do list were enough to compel a dying man to stay on earth when his spirit’s GPS is set for another dimension. And yet, perhaps it’s not so strange to think so.

Return he did, although there were some very touch-and-go scary moments along the way.

About a week after the cardiac event, there he was, grilling that fish on the deck for Fourth of July, almost, almost, but not quite, as if nothing had ever happened. And the fish came out as if it had never seen the inside of a freezer.

Here is Pedro’s lovely recipe for perfect grilled fish (which he did indeed eat, crazy-ass diet be damned. I mean, after a close brush with death, wouldn’t you just have to say fuck it, this diet ain’t working, pass me the real food?).

It is seasoned just enough to let the freshness sing a song of the sea. And for us to sing a song of gladness. Can the fishing trip with Leandro be far behind?

Perfect Grilled Fish (by Pedro, hurray, hurray!)

1lb filleted striped bass or other firm white fish

Salt

Juice of one lemon (about ¼ Cup)

1 tsp olive oil

½ tsp adobo powder

A grill basket

A lemon sliced into thin rounds

Salt filets lightly on all sides. Place in bowl and squeeze lemon over. Turn filets until coated and refrigerate about 15 minutes, or until edges begin to turn opaque and white. Remove filets from bowl, discarding lemon juice and wiping out bowl. Rinse filets, pat dry, and put back in bowl. Cover with olive oil and adobo powder and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Brush the grill basket lightly with oil. Place filets flat on grill basket (reserving oil and adobo juices in the bowl for brushing while grilling). Cook on a medium hot grill for about two minutes. Turn over and brush with reserved oil and cook for another two minutes. Lay lemon slices on each filet and cook for another minute or two, until fish is opaque, but not dry.

Serve garnished with lemon slices.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Have You Seen the Peterson Farm Bros New Video?

4 Jul

More MooTV than MTV, this riff on the pop hit “I’m Sexy and I Know It” is great entertainment for the farm-to-table set. Don’t miss it…Leandro and I have been watching it nonstop for a couple of days now and we just love these boys. Leandro is singing it in the bath right now, even as I write!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Serenata (a Lenten favorite that is a hot weather favorite too)

2 Jul

Bacalao — if you are not a fan — is an insulting thing to call someone; to the bacalao-averse it is a smelly, salty, fibrous fish; it is yucky and you can’t stomach it or even smell it cooking in the house.

Bacalao — if you are a fan — is the magical, durable, sustaining food of seafarers and coastal folks from far flung places; a protein source that won’t go off without refrigeration; a salty treat that tastes great with rice, in fritters, in any number of ways, the flavor of Lenten Fridays and Christmas buffets.

Bacalao is dried salt cod (called saltfish on many of the Caribbean Islands) and if you don’t like it, you may want to stop reading now.

If you do like it, I hope you will try it as serenata, a dish very popular in Puerto Rico, that I am told doesn’t come from Spain, but was developed in the Caribbean. It may have been the dish traditionally served to a successful suitor after he serenaded his intended under the window on a warm, tropical palm-swaying kind of evening.

Then again, maybe not. Since salt cod must be desalinated ahead of time, the intended must have known when her suitor was coming and what her answer would be, well in advance of the event. Hardly a romantic surprise. But I love me an apocryphal story as much as the next person!

If I were waiting for a suitor to turn up in order to eat serenata, it would be a long time before I had it again. But me being me, I don’t wait.

We eat serenata during Lent on Fridays, but I like it any time. It combines a strong salty fish with bland tubers (which we in Puerto Rico call viandas); I like to mush it up all together on my plate with abundant oil for a a dense and salty mashed potato-type of experience.

My dad found a breadfruit somewhere the other day (I suspect he shook someone down for it, but whatever you have to do in New York to get a tropical breadfruit seems justifiable to me. I asked no questions). Breadfruit is one of my absolute favorite things to eat in this whole blessed world. Set the dense creaminess of breadfruit against the power of bacalao and I am in heaven. So I started soaking my fish immediately. Chowing down was like mainlining the memories of so many amazing days and adventures…I felt almost drunk on the event!

Notes: Atlantic cod is on the naughty list of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch (for more info, click here) but I got Alaskan Pollock, which seems to be okay for the moment, although wild-caught Alaskan is the most recommended. I try.

For a delightful read on the fascinating history of cod, get Cod: A biography of the fish that changed the world, by one of my favorite food researchers and writers, Mark Kurlansky!

Full disclosure: My son will not touch bacalao, hates the smell and — every time he smells a funky smell somewhere, he calls it bacalao. He’ll grow into it.

For a variation on Bacalao a la vizcaina (with tomato sauce), click here

Serenata (desalination begins the night before or morning before cooking. The rest of the prep is only 15 minutes)

  1. Bacalao: 1lb. dried salt cod, desalinated and rehydrated according to the following directions: To desalinate: Place cod in abundant cold water in the evening or in the morning. Before going to bed or to work, change the water. Upon waking or returning from work, change the water again. When ready to cook, place bacalao in a pot with abundant water. Bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium, simmer for 3-5 minutes, drain and allow to cool.
  2.  Stodge: 1-2 lbs potatoes/yautía/yuca/breadfruit/malanga (taro) or other tuberous root vegetable. Peeled and boiled until fully cooked through (from 15-30 minutes, depending on density of tuber) and kept warm
  3. Dressing — 4 Tbs olive oil;1 tsp capers; 10 pimiento-stuffed olives, sliced; ½ cup red onion, chopped; 10 grape tomatoes, quartered (Plus additional olive oil for drizzling and salt to taste).

4. Optional: avocado slices, hard-boiled eggs, peeled and sliced

Flake cooled bacalao in to a bowl. Add all the ingredients in C. Mix well and serve with tubers, additional oil and optional avocado and eggs.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Kid’s Party Snack Alternative: Bagel Buffet, Starring Cream Cheese Two Ways!

26 Jun

My pizza party days are over. I used to like the occasional slice, but once you have a kid and start attending kids’ parties with alarming frequency, the whole pizza thing becomes tedious (and hard on the waistline), except for the part about not having to figure out lunch for your kid for a day. I like that part a whole lot.

Mind you, I have served pizza at a number of Leandro’s parties. Three regular pies, sliced in 16ths, for the kids. Another one or two pies for the parents. Guilty as charged.

Cream cheese with chives

By the time they get served, the waxy cheese is getting hard, the crust is soft, and chewy and the sauce, whatever it was, is gone. Besides, regular slices bore the hell out of me. Call me a snob, but if you lived in Italy for a couple of years and ate wood stove-crispy thin pies (slice? Cosa e? Ma scherzi.…) topped with seasonal veggies and homemade sausage with a carafe of the charming local plonk most Friday nights out with your charming boyfriend who didn’t mind your bit of flirting with the charming Italians who owned the place….well, a leaden slice of regular from a box choked down to the soundtrack of overexcited preschoolers and bounce-house kiddie-pop might also feel somewhat wrong to you.

Maple-Walnut Cream Cheese

Anyhoo, I wanted to change it up just a little this time around. It’s not just the pizza thing; it’s that I like to cook and entertain and this seemed to me to be an chance to manifest my own self in a more public forum than usual. It is all well and good to set yourself up as a food blogger because your child has been indoctrinated to believe that what you are making him is good stuff. It’s quite another thing to lay it out there for public tasting and scrutiny.

And of course, the other reason is that in my universe, you honor your guests by serving them nice food.

We celebrated Leandro’s birthday at the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center at Jones Beach. The time was from 10 am-noon on a Sunday. If you have ever been in downstate New York on a Sunday morning, you will understand that bagels are the only appropriate response. It’s like the venerable five o’clock cocktail, only heavier on the carbs. So I went with pre-sliced mini-bagels from Seaford Bagel – convenient, but with ample opportunities to prepare a few spreads of your own.

Buffet table note: cheese and ham slices and mustard and mayo rounded out the buffet. Not one of my 50 Shades of Martha moments on the decor, but it worked well enough. A Box of Joe, juice boxes, and bottles of water completed the spread.

In my own defense, I am not completely bonkers and did not bake the main event: The “birthday cake” was cupcakes, ordered from Stop & Shop. Yes. A chain grocery store. Did you really think I was going to bake an effen cake!?! They were, by all accounts, delicious, topped with butter cream and decorated with Spiderman, Hello Kitty and other rings. Eternal thanks to the wisdom of Marianne/Madrina, for her bagel shop and cupcake source recommendations.

Among the spreads were tuna salad and egg salad (click to get those recipes from earlier posts), and the following two easy cream cheese variations. The maple-walnut spread was especially popular (and so easy it’s almost embarrassing). The kids mostly ate straight-up butter or cream cheese. But the parents and big kids who came to show solidarity were All Over the buffet table and even made a few to-go bagels. (Hector and Sean, I am naming names!!!). We also had plenty of bagels left over to pack in the cooler for our glorious, post-party beach afternoon.

I hope you’ll try them next time you want to bring up your bagel buffet game without killing yourself. Don’t pay for store-made. These are too simple and the praise too gratifying.

Thanks to all of you who came and made this day one of Leandro’s best and most memorable ever. I will eat your party pizza every time and enjoy your company, so don’t fret or hesitate to invite us to the next one. Leandro needs the break from his mom’s obsessiveness!

Cucumber slices are an easy dress-up for cream cheese and chives or tuna salad

Cream Cheese with Chives

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 Tbs chives, chopped

1 tsp green onion, chopped fine (including white part!)

In a bowl, mix all ingredients thoroughly. Chill at least a half hour for flavors to incorporate.

Maple Walnut Cream Cheese

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 Tbs real maple syrup

½ tsp vanilla extract (if you actually have maple extract, you can use it here)

½ cup chopped walnuts, plus walnuts for garnish

In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, syrup and extract. Stir in the walnuts and chill for at least 30 minutes. Turn the cream cheese into your serving dish and garnish with whole walnuts.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Blueberry Pound Cake

23 Jun

When it comes to baking, I am seriously out of my comfort zone. I am a mas o menos (more or less) type of girl: more or less on time (usually less, but I get to my job, the airport, and the train station on time. Anything else, well, I try my best, but often get sidetracked. I have a lot of roses to sniff).

This mas o menos personality thing is well suited to making stews, marinades, pasta sauce. You don’t like how things are going? Add a dash of this. A pinch of that. A heaping tablespoon of cumin, a squirt of hot sauce, more garlic, of course. Cooking at home is a jam session, a sudden-onset sick guitar lick, ad-libs, improvisation, invention, spontaneity. Kick, save, and a beauty!

But when you eff up a baking recipe, there is often no heroic rescue, no sleight of hand, no inspired solution, no excuse, no fashionably late (although you can blame it on your preschooler; on some level every mistake you make is somehow attributable to the kid. Milk that while you can!)

There’s a quote from somewhere that states: “Cooking is an art. Baking is a science.” I dropped high school Physics in the first quarter with a D, but came very close to going to art school.

Therefore, I approach every baking project with a bit of anxiety. And when I have anxiety about something, I try to get someone else to do it for me. So, when my friend, Beth, had a few minutes to hang out when dropping off my son’s best friend for a playdate, didn’t I just enlist her to help me make pound cake?

She’s an experienced baker whose grandmother taught her right, while I am from two Caribbean families who quite rightly had little interest in turning on an oven in the middle of the tropics. Freezer pops? They are on it. Grill? Sí señor. But bread? That’s something you buy. Let someone else sweat that.

So in just minutes, I learned a lot from Beth. Measure the flour after you sift it. Dredge the blueberries before folding them into the batter. This is how to flour a pan.

Poured about a quarter of the batter without blueberries…to keep the kids happy. The kids were happy.

However we did – and I am not throwing blame here, but I don’t think it was me! – invert the order of a critical step a, missing the wet ingredient before dry. My stomach sank. Did I just invest two sticks of butter and six local, organic ($$$) eggs into a disaster? Am I going to have a pile of shit at the end of this?

But no, Beth carried on calmly, added the missing ingredients and moved forward. And wouldn’t you know, it turns out that sometimes, with a bit of calm, even a baking mistake can work out.

This was the best damn pound cake I have ever had and I think you should make it. Now.

And if any of your mistakes turn out to be just fine, let me know. Cause the laws of physics are not always as bad as they seem. And baking is better with friends.

Blueberry Pound Cake (adapted from Cook’s Illustrated Classic Pound Cake)

16 Tbs unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 16 pieces

3 large eggs, plus 3 large yolks, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¾ Cups (7oz) all purpose flour (Cook’s Illustrated recommends cake flour, but I didn’t have that)

½ tsp salt

1 ¼ Cups (8 ¾ oz) sugar

1 Cup blueberries (If using frozen, allow to thaw. Drain juice, keeping the berries).

Flour for dredging berries

Place butter in a bowl to soften slightly (20-30 minutes). Use a fork to beat eggs, yolks, and vanilla in a bowl or measuring cup and let stand at room temperature until you are ready to use.

Preheat oven to 325°F with rack in the center of the oven. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan.

a)      Beat butter and salt with a wooden spoon until shiny, smooth and creamy, about 5-7 minutes. Gradually add the sugar, beating steadily, until all sugar is incorporated and the mixture is light and fluffy.

b)      Sift flour over butter mixture in three additions with a rubber spatula until combined. Be very gentle!

c)       Then add egg mixture and do the same, mixing until just combined.*

Dredge the blueberries in flour until well-coated. Fold blueberries into the batter and pour into prepared pan, smoothing top with rubber spatula. Bake cake for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. Let cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then invert cake onto wire rack, turn right-side up and cool completely for a couple of hours. Cake can be store at room temperature for about three days.

*Note: The original recipe called for steps b and c to be in the opposite order from what you see here. Beth and I inverted the instructions by accident, but the cake suffered no discernable problems from our mistake. So it’s your call whether you want to try it the Cook’s Illustrated way or The Accidental Baker way. The recipe here is The Accidental Baker way.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Funchi: Polenta the (Easier) Aruban Way

20 Jun

You may know that my dad is from Aruba, One Happy Island.

If you are not familiar with Aruba, it is part of the Netherlands Antilles, about 13 nautical miles off the coast of Venezuela (18 or so regular miles), south of the Caribbean hurricane zone, and notable for its absence of rainfall and its white sand beaches and crystalline waters. With sunshine guaranteed year-round, it is extremely popular with honeymooners and northern folks from wet places who want to know their vacation dollars won’t be wasted on a week in a monsoon.

It’s a gorgeous little place – and I mean little – Aruba is about 30 km (19 miles) long and about 8 km (5 miles) wide. You can drive around the island and dispatch with most of your touristic cultural obligations in about half a day, and return in good conscience to your beach towel for the duration of your stay.

Mind you, the natives, while welcoming, may make you wonder what your own educational system is doing wrong. Virtually everyone in Aruba speaks English well, in addition to Papiamento – the local language-, Dutch – which they study in school, and Spanish – which most people speak and understand tolerably well. Yeah, four languages per person is par for the course. Just putting it out there.

Pedro’s always made Aruban dishes here at home, and one of my favorite sides in the world is funchi – a corn meal mush that gourmands will recognize it as a close cousin of polenta. Lazy – I mean pragmatic – cooks like myself will recognize it as a lot less work than said continental cousin. Rather than spending a sweaty half hour or more over a steaming copper pot busting your biceps turning it with a wooden spoon, this takes about ten minutes and the results are very satisfactory.

Grilled in slabs…yum!

Then you can pile any number of savory dishes on the top – fish with onion and pepper sauce (mojo isleno) is one of the most popular. I love slabs of it grilled; it makes the inside creamier and the outside crunchier, like  surullitos or corn fritters, without the grease.

Since Pedro decided to abandon his crazy-ass diet for lunch on Father’s Day (and then promptly wrote me out of the food prep), I decided to make him some heritage food. You can check out the original VisitAruba recipe I adapted this from by clicking the link (and troll around the page to learn more about this tiny paradise). Be it known that Pedro provided critical advice for this, so while it is made by a second-generation Aruban (me), it was supervised by an real-live authentic native. And it was a terrific success — dear old Padushi started speaking Papiamento right away. Dushi! Masha bon, danki……

Topped with grilled salmon – not quite an Aruban traditional dish, but delicious just the same…Funchi is as adaptable as any Caribbean Islander

Funchi (Aruban Polenta)

1 ¼ Cups cold water

1 ½ Cups coarse/stone ground corn meal

½ tsp salt

1.5 Cups boiling water

1 Tbs olive oil (plus a little bit for greasing a mold or bowl to turn the funchi into)

In a heavy saucepan, mix cold water, corn meal, and salt. When relatively smooth, with no big lumps, stir in the boiling water and oil and bring to a rapid boil. Lower heat to medium low and continue to cook, stirring continuously, for another five minutes, or until the mixture is stiff and pulling away from the sides. Turn the funchi into a greased mold or bowl and cover with a plate. Turn it over onto the plate and allow to cool slightly before scooping out and serving. Or allow to cool completely, cut into one inch slices, brush with oil and grill until crisp on both sides.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Pressed Sandwich with No Press(ure)

13 Jun

As the maniacal good-foodie mom of a kid about to enter kindergarten, I am turning my attention to future lunchbox fillers that can compete with Tater Tots and Elio’s Pizza (can you tell what I ate in high school?). Sandwiches are going to have to be an integral part of my strategy, but wouldn’t you know it? The kid doesn’t eat sandwiches (nor do I very often, to be fair).

So when he finally tried and loved grilled cheese sandwiches at his daycare, I felt a sense of relief. The breakthrough I was hoping for has happened!

However, me being me, it is, of course, not possible to slap a couple of slices of American cheese on white toast and relax. I didn’t really want to make a production out of it, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a good-looking pressed sandwich with real cheese and real bread? Except that I don’t have a sandwich press.

It didn’t matter. With a bit of invention, I made some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches with grill marks, even! I used my grill pan, and to achieve the press, I took a heavy skillet (with a clean bottom!) and laid it on top. Then I placed another heavy pot on top, so I could walk away for a few minutes without having to press it myself.

And I got high marks from the little guy and at least one sandwich solution ready for September….Whee-hee! Who knows where we can get from here? I’m thinking BLT, baby!

Pressed Sandwich Without a Real Press

¼ tsp oil or spritz of oil spray

Four sandwich slices of bread, spread with a scraping of butter (I lightly toast mine first)

2-3 oz soft, meltable cheese (cheddar, Monterey jack, muenster, gouda), sliced

Heat grill pan or skillet with a smear of oil or spray.

Have another heavy pan at the ready.

Lay two slices of bread, buttered side up, on the grill pan. Top with cheese slices. Cover with remaining slices of bread and press under second pan. Use another heat-proof pot on top to weigh it down. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from heat and allow to cool a few minutes before slicing. Serve!

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Quick Vegetable Soup for a Sick Day You Couldn’t Take

10 Jun

A few weeks ago I got bronchitis. I don’t get sick often, but sometimes you just pound it too hard and the body craps out.

However, it was not the right time to take off from work, which statement is probably a clear indicator of how crazed about work our American society is (And how I have become). “Yeah, I am on death’s door, but I gotta go to work.” Heavy sigh followed by a hacking, wracking cough. Wipe nose on sleeve. Carry on.

And I was one of at least two in our department who were in the same boat. Ah well. In my next iteration, I will go back to being Mediterranean or Caribbean in my approach. It is much better.

Anyhoo, by the time I stumbled home and crawled up the stairs on one of the worst days, I wasn’t up for much cooking. I was, however, very much in the mood for a comforting, nourishing soup. So was my mom, who was in similar condition downstairs.

That is when knowing your way around a kitchen is a good thing. If you can chop, saute, and add flavorful liquids, in about 25 minutes you can have a soup that may not raise the dead, but will smell good, taste good (if you have any sense of smell or taste left)  and make you feel better. If you don’t have any sense of smell or taste, just load on the hot sauce and enjoy a few minutes of steamed and spicy relief.

Feel like you can’t even deal with chopping fresh vegetables? Go ahead, empty out all the useless quarter bags of frozen vegetables buried in the back of the freezer. The tomatoe-y broth and herbs will make it all taste good, even if the texture leaves a bit to be desired.

Easy Vegetable Soup

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 Cup chopped carrots and celery

2 Cups other mixed vegetables (whatever bits are around the fridge anxious to be used – I used cauliflower, broccoli, summer squash. Potatoes, leeks, spinach would be nice too. You can also use frozen – why not?)

15 oz. can of tomatoes – pureed, chopped, diced, whole, whatever*

1 quart your preferred stock, plus more liquid to cover – can be stock or water*.

15 oz. can of white beans, rinsed and drained

½ Cup of cooked rice or pasta, if you’ve got

½ Cup fresh or frozen chopped spinach, optional

1 Tbs dried herbs (your preferred combination of oregano/thyme/rosemary/parsley/marjoram)

Salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste

In a deep soup pot, heat the oil at medium high until loose and fragrant. Add onions, stir to coat, and lower heat to medium. Add garlic, carrots, and celery, and saute for five minutes, until becoming tender. Add additional vegetables, stir to coat and sauté another three minutes. Add tomatoes and broth, plus enough additional liquid to cover, bring pot to boil, then lower heat and simmer for ten minutes. With about five minutes left in the simmer, add beans, and optional pasta and spinach, and seasoning. Serve with saltines or crusty bread.

*(Note: You can substitute some or all the stock, or the can of tomatoes with vegetable juice such as V-8 – low-sodium preferred)

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →