What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Got a flank steak yesterday. Half of it will become Sichuan dry-fried beef tonight. The other half will be stir-fried with bell peppers. If I'm feeling ambitious and I can find pork belly, I'll likely make coq au vin for Easter.

-Paul W.

Karen, will do this evening. (I'm at work now.)

Last night was Island-spiced chicken: legs and thighs spent an hour rubbed with brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, coriander, grains of paradise, s+p; then baked on top of pineapple spears in a hot oven; doused just at the end with a simple brown sugar-butter-rum-pineapple juice glaze. Served with our favorite mix of brown, red, and wild rice.

(Yes, if it were just me, I'd punch-up that spice mix with a chipotle in adobo and scallions.)

Whatever you do, don't put on any tomatoes or slide a thin disk of dough under it. Oh, the humanity!

[Jenise]

Dinner last night: KFC. Was in town car shopping and then the reaction to Dose #4 the day before started. So we grabbed a bucket, headed home, ate a bit (with a homemade cabbage slaw I threw together on arrival), and went straight to bed.

I'm not feeling well, so dinner for me tonight is a bowl of wheat chex. If any of you have taken iron tablets for several months, you're aware of the constant stomach ache, nausea, and fatigue (sorta like chemotherapy).

I do not take tablets for my supplements, have heard of too many with stomach issues. For Iron, I rely on Beans and lentils,
Tofu.
Baked potatoes.
Cashews.
Dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach.
Fortified breakfast cereals.
Whole-grain and enriched breads. I can't stand tofu, so that is out. Lentils are not on my list either, but the rest are ingredients I have often. I especially love, putting kale, spinach, in the home made soups and when I do, it it packed with the good stuff. I also keep cans of smoked oysters, and enjoy those often along with my nightly martini. Sardines are good too.

[Jenise]

I'm not feeling well, so dinner for me tonight is a bowl of wheat chex. If any of you have taken iron tablets for several months, you're aware of the constant stomach ache, nausea, and fatigue (sorta like chemotherapy).

Ah shucks, Larry. Hope the cereal helps.

[Jenise]

Tonight we're going to a wine tasting, and as usual I'm preparing something that's not just a good match for the wines but is defensive against all the fatty cheese and salami that I presume will show up. So I'm making what I call a 'winter panzanella'. My own invention, so there's no roadmap for what makes it right except that it's a tomato-less bread salad, and this time I'm using Rustic Wheat bread from a local bakery, thinly sliced white mushrooms and cauliflower marinated all day in white wine vinegar to preserve white color, kale marinated separately with lemon and honey, radicchio, radishes, fennel, red onions, pine nuts and capers, homemade red wine vinegar and black truffles from a jar.

[Jenise]

Last night we went vegan again with stuffed portobello mushrooms nested in steamed Fioretti cauliflower for a main followed by a quart of terrific strawberries which were about as good as same ever gets when imported from California vs. local.

Tonight I'm going to take a stab at that Turkey breast cordon bleu I posted a picture of a few weeks ago.

I wasn't feeling very ambitious last night so I made BLTs with a lovely heirloom tomato I found at Lull Farm. Grown in a hothouse, obviously, and not as tasty as in-season, but still light years better than supermarket golf balls.

-Paul W.

...a lovely heirloom tomato I found at Lull Farm...

Speaking of that: My local grocery carries "heirloom tomatoes" well before the farmer's markets and well after. They *look* spectacular, all creasy, shiny, irregular. I bought one of them, once, and it had no flavor. I can wait for the farm stands.

[Jenise]

I do not wait for the farm stands. Bad tomatoes are better than no tomatoes at all for this tomatoholic. That said I did buy some dark red storebought heirlooms this weekend that were SPECATACULAR. Plump and almost candy sweet. It CAN happen.

So last night I made the Turkey Cordon Bleu. Deboned a frozen kosher half breast I found at Trader Joe's and doused it with white vermouth and olive oil which spent the day under plastic rehydrating. At dinner time, I splayed it out to make a larger canvas, loosened some of the skin so it was all outside and didn't get rolled inside, plunked provolone cheese rolled in Trader Joe's rosemary ham in the center, added a few more leaves of fresh rosemary, then rolled/pinned/tied it into a uniform log shape, pan seared it for color and then put it in a 250F oven to bake for 40 minutes. All guess work--since what needed to cook was the outer ring, not the center, and the internal temp would be misleading to a Thermapen. I baked it for 30 minutes initially, then added ten more.

OH DEAR GOD was that good. I kid you not, the first bites were so amazing it made Bob cry. I served it with slices of steamed potato following an arugula and cherry tomato salad. Very very worth all the effort and fun to build (for those of us who love building our food).

That sounds really good. I like turkey well enough to have it outside of Q4.

Lull Farm had a basket with several varieties of heirloom tomato. The one I chose looked (and tasted) like a brandywine. According to a friend of mine who has a garden, brandywines are to heirloom tomatoes what viognier is to grape varieties--wonderful flavor, but very hard to grow. Brandywines are picky about soil and sunshine, ripen unevenly, are prone to every known tomato disease, and have a tendency for the fruit to split its skin and then heal back over, leaving a scar. They're butt ugly, but boy are they good!

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

That sounds really good. I like turkey well enough to have it outside of Q4.

Same here. And I carved off two pieces that will get schnitzeled tonight. Good value for a $14 piece of meat.

The recent cooking here was bacon-wrapped meat loaf (or, rather, meat mound... I don't have a loaf pan that holds 3# of anything).

[Jenise]

Jeff, my meat loafs are always meat mounds regardless of size because I want to maximize crust (best part of the whole thing).

Jeff, my meat loafs are always meat mounds regardless of size because I want to maximize crust (best part of the whole thing).

Do you do anything special to make it more crusty? I just slather with ketchup, cook it, then cut it into slices and cook it in a pan again.

[Jenise]

Sometimes. I've been known to paint it with worcestershire and sprinkle parm over depending on my end goal, painting with oyster sauce is also most excellent and V-8 and other things works well too. I'm not into ketchup so that's not something I've done but with the sugars in it I'm sure you get a crust with it.

Another wonderful rainy day today and I have been craving a good old fashioned hamburger with french fries. I have a great veggie dish left over from yesterday, of small zucchini, red onion, garlic, diced tomatoes, Zatar and fresh lemon juice for my daily veggie fix. I will make my own french fries as I have to use up a couple of Yukon Gold. Thick cut wedges, roasted in the oven with coarse sea salt and bold freshly ground black pepper.

I'm not into ketchup...

But it's made from tomatoes!

I'm not into ketchup...

But it's made from tomatoes!

And was considered a vegetable in school lunches during the Reagan era.

I saw this recipe for a sauce used in a chicken rice bowl, and was intrigued by the complexity of the ingredients. It is pretty good. I am still playing with the ingredients.
Aji Verde
Ingredients
1-2 medium fresh jalapeños seeds and ribs removed
1 tablespoon Aji Amarillo paste
1 ¼ cups fresh cilantro leaves and stems tightly packed (about 1 medium size bunch)
¼ cup fresh basil leaves tightly packed
2 tablespoons grated cotija or parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger
1 teaspoon honey
1 medium clove garlic
1 tablespoon sunflower or canola oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
½ cup mayonnaise
kosher salt to taste

Instructions
Combine all ingredients except mayonnaise in a strong blender. Blend on high speed until smooth sauce forms.
Add mayonnaise and blend until homogenous.
Transfer to a jar with a tight fitting lid and season to taste with salt and pepper. Unused sauce can be stored in a covered container for up to 1 week

I am cooking lamb chops tonight, These are browned in oil, cooked to medium rare, then set aside.
In the same pan add 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce, 1/4 cup honey, 2 Tbsp.. finely grated ginger . Cook and scrape bottom of pan until sauce thickens.
Add black beans, 1 large bell pepper (color of your choice) 1/2 red onion, chopped and 1 medium jalapeno seeded and chopped. Cook until vegetables are softened and beans heated through, Lamb and beans can be added to a bowl, with cooked jasmine rice. Add Aji Verdi,, avocado slices, if desired, lemon wedges and basil or cilantro leaves for garnish.

Baking a version of my everyday bread right now. No clue yet what to cook tonight, but I'm staling some bread for French toast tomorrow.