What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

Has anyone tried the ratatouille described in MFK Fisher's book about her early married life in Burgundy? Takes like 3 hours to bake; it's that long-long-cooked vegetable magic. I've always meant to dig that out and try it again.

Just had aquick look at the MFK shelf and scanned the first reference i came across.Shove everything in the pot and slow cook for hours. she seems to have done stovetop having no oven.
i often do ratatouille long and slow. love the reduced oily, garlicy juices. l

she heads my list of people i would have liked to dine with,

Katie and I used to make ratatouille using Julia Childs recipe. It was such a long drawn out process. Slice veggies, roast, layer, ….. We finally started making a ratatouille “casserole”., Chop everything, sauté them, put into a baking dish and finish.

I, too, used to use Julia Child's recipe for ratatouille. It looks very elegant when it's done but it's very fussy and labor intensive. I followed the same route you and Katie did. I now chop up the eggplant and zucchini, brown them separately in olive oil, then saute the sliced onions and peppers, add chopped tomatoes, let the tomato juices reduce, then return the eggplant and zucchini to the pan, mix everything up, and simmer slowly on the stovetop. The result won't win any beauty prizes but it tastes wonderful.

-Paul W.

Tonight, is oven-fried chicken. Chicken is marinating in buttermilk and Tapatio Hot Sauce. Breaded later with a product I love called Oven Fry to which I add lots of fresh Rosemary. Sides are a marinated pepper salad with Cannellini Beans, Israeli Couscous, fresh basil, and green olives. Chilled Asparagus with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette.

[Jenise]

Sounds delicious, Karen, and you're always coming up with product names I don't know. Have not heard of Oven Fry. Available at conventional grocers?

[Jenise]

Not cooking dinner tonight but am making an appetizer for a wine soiree I'm going to that came out of a book on Japanese grilling I just borrowed from Bill Spohn. Very simple: 1 1/2 inch lengths of asparagus wrapped in 3" lengths of bacon, secured with toothpicks and grilled or, in my case, baked at about 425 until the bacon gets crispy, about ten minutes. DELICIOUS. Will be great with tonight's red wines.

Tomorrow, it's crab. I was planning a green chile-crab enchilada pie for tomorrow using the crab a neighbor brought me a few days ago, then this morning two hours apart two different neighbors dropped off five more whole crab, cleaned and cooked. Am I a lucky woman or what? (These neighbors today reported total catches of 35 and 45 respectively. WOW.)

One can only make so many fried or stuffed and fried squash blossoms before yelling "Enough !" My husband insists on planting 8 summer squash and his daily morning ritual, often in his bathrobe, is to harvest the flowers, lay them out in a neat expectant row on the island complaining if any girls escaped his eye and had baby squash overnight. Never failing to be impressed with the plethora, size and gender differences in the flowers I feign surprise and ask if he was thinking we should have fiori fritti for an appetizer tonight. I never fry anything throughout the year but can not extract myself from this summer ritual. Friends, neighbors, workmen, all are pleadingly invited to help diminish the daily haul. The Fed Ex and UPS people are now staying away at appetizer time. My husband thinks it a great time to open those unusual whites he buys on line to try with the finished product that is shatteringly crisp and quite tasty with a new variation this year - 50/50 wheat flour/very finely ground corn flour. Rick Bayless comes to the rescue when enough is enough so his Sopa Xochtil, a rustic soup with tomato, squash blossoms, jalapeno and avocado or his corn crepas filled with poblano, corn, diced zucchini, cilantro and blossoms then baked under a coating of creme fraiche and melting cheese make an appearance at least once a season. I made the Crepas a la Mexicana from his Mexican Kitchen cookbook tonight. This year's tweaks were to use the corn flour instead of masa to make the crepes, more seriously brown the onion and use more roasted poblano which had an unusual amount of heat. I nearly tripled the blossom simply because I wanted truthfully to say, there are no more blossoms to fry.

Oh, Christina! Squash blossoms are so nice... every now and then. But it sounds like you need new ways to move 'em out.

Some thoughts: top a pizza with them (especially if you can make a thin-crust type), throw into a frittata with the potatoes and whatever else, make quesadillas (should work with a cheesy filling), treat them like deviled eggs (pipe them full of mashed yolk or just ricotta mixed with pimento), chop them coarsely into a mild gazpacho, or, perhaps make this sauce ((NB. have not tried it yet)): http://orangette.net/2006/07/pasta-no-pomodoro/

Sounds delicious, Karen, and you're always coming up with product names I don't know. Have not heard of Oven Fry. Available at conventional grocers?

Hi Jenise, Oven Fry is a product I have used for decades. It is in the aisle with all the breading mixes for chicken, pork. It is the only one I like as it gives a nice thick coating. The crunchy stuff that falls off and cooks in with the chicken juices are my favorite. Mixing it with fresh rosemary is great and I do it early in the day so the breading picks up more flavors. I do not use the dip-in egg method as I find the chicken soaked in buttermilk and Tabasco or Tapatio makes for a nice moist and tender chicken. A Martha Stewart hint I picked up years ago.
I cannot get it at our neighborhood grocery anymore, but I did see it at Safeway, however, the last purchase was during the Covid mess so I got it here.
https://www.amazon.com/Extra-Crispy-Sea ... 6221&psc=1

Made some bread for this first time in a couple of weeks: buttermilk bread with some added whole wheat, rye, sunflower seeds, and chia seeds. I treated myself to one slice. Yum.

And buttermilk pancakes for breakfast (I'm trying to get rid of a bottle of buttermilk).

Your bread sounds delicious, and so do the pancakes. I always make buttermilk pancakes, and waffles too.

[Jenise]

Last nigh we had grilled veal chops. They're thin 6 ounce chops that cook quickly and were delish paired with some romano beans sauteed with garlic and butter and a small broiled tomato half. Didn't have the appetite for my usual first course salad let alone the whole crab enchilada pie I had planned originally. I'll do that tonight.

Today, I am making a dish with gnocchi, red and gold bell peppers, rainbow chard, and goat cheese, it is put under the broiler at the end to brown breadcrumbs until crisp and golden brown. This will go with a nice lemon-flavored halibut.

[Jenise]

Last night's crab and tomatillo enchilada pie with guajillo chile drizzle:

CrabPie.jpg

That is beautiful! How did it taste?

Looks like a lasagna!

[Jenise]

It's divine, Karen; this or something like it (no recipe, I just make it) has become an annual crab season tradition. The sauce was made from a puree of roasted tomatillos and hatch green chiles, cilantro, sour cream, chicken stock, oregano and cumin. I put two layers of crab (two pounds total) between three double-ply layers of tortilla, and two quarts of that sauce went throughout. A layer of cheese on top only.

[Jenise]

Dinner tonight: Chinese BBQ duck from a hole-in-the-wall in Richmond, B.C. that's located, quite charmingly I thought, on the ground-floor level of a multi-story parking garage, entrance inside the car park, not outside. As adventures in food-sourcing go, it doesn't get much better than this!

Oh, you wacky car-culture people!

[Jenise]

LOL. Yes, that's us out here in the wide open plains of the West.

Glad to hear from you--apparently you didn't float away.

It was an impressive rain. The subways were a mess; I worked from home today because I could not get to my office.

My house had just a bit of water in the basement, and that only because some leftover floor tiles had blocked the drain. (Anybody want some leftover floor tiles, big clearance sale starting right away....)

Honestly, the City is not in such bad shape. Hardly any trees down, nobody without power, it's just that the flooding that did happen is very visible. Certainly, Sandy was much worse, and, in my house, we had more trouble with Irene, the year before.

[Jenise]

Glad to hear it. NJ and Philadelphia got swamped, though.

Tonight I'm making prime rib. Caesar salad to start, prime rib, then biscotti with Sauternes. I'm torn between making a classic potato gratin (what I really want) or a wild rice pilaf (healthier) to go with the meat. I think the latter's going to win. Actually, though, my first choice was horseradish mashed potatoes but it turns out that none of the produce departments in this town have fresh horseradish.

Dinner tonight: .... on the ground-floor level of a multi-story parking garage, entrance inside the car park, not outside.

Interesting, the dim sum place I like in Boston is on the ground-floor of a parking garage. The entrance is on the sidewalk not in the garage.

[Jenise]

That's what one would expect. They do have outside exposure, I saw windows, but perhaps it's a Covid thing that they're limiting business to take-out only from inside the garage. That's where the big window with the hanging meats is, not on the street side.