Cookies

Have I mentioned how much I like to bake? That's because I don't. But I do have an idea for some kick-ass cookies. I will come up with a recipe someday, but if I don't write it down, I will forget it forever.

Here's the gist:
-Molasses cookies with one or more of the following:
-Dark chocolate chunks
-Crystallized ginger

Stroganoff for the Refined Palate

Beef Stroganoff is delicious. And it turns out, it does not originate solely from a Hamburger Helper box. It's actually from Russia...but then again, so was Hamburger Helper last time I checked.

This version includes a white wine and dill sauce combined with the usual ingredients: beef, mushrooms, and noodles.

-Braise some cubed beef with some olive oil, dry white wine, and beef stock
-Remove beef once it is cooked to medium, leaving the sauce to simmer and reduce
-Add dill, salt, and pepper (maybe a pat of butter as well, but don't tell Jill)
-Once the sauce is reduced and thickened up, return the noodles (have I mentioned noodles yet? You're cooking pasta at the same time, right? Farfalle works well.) and beef to the pan and simmer for a while. Maybe even throw the whole thing in the oven to cook together.
-Top with a little Greek yogurt and dill.

Just like that little glove guy used to make.

Sea Bass

Sea Bass is a controversial fish. It is so tasty that it has formed a campaign against eating it, citing some mularkey like overfishing statistics. Seriously, I know a guy who once worked at NOAA, and it's pretty much a joke. Everyone knows fish are a renewable resource, like tempeh, or bamboo.

Look, I don't want any trouble, so I'm happy to make the following recipe using any kind of whitefish, but just know that if you want maximum deliciosity, use sea bass.


-Fish (preferably Sea Bass -- see above)
-Olive oil
-Small, sweet tomatoes
-Garlic
-White balsamic vinegar
-Lemon juice

Cook the tomatoes and garlic in olive oil until tomatoes are tender. Splash in some vinegar and lemon juice as you go along.
Puree the whole mixture and you've got a delicious sauce for your fish. Cover the fish in the puree and bake. Garnish with something green.

By Popular Demand

My throngs of adoring fans have insisted that I post a real recipe for the bread that I baked. I'm not sure if there are plagiarism laws for recipes, but in the sake of full disclosure I will note that this recipe was taken from Nancy Leson's Seattle Times food blog "All You Can Eat," and her recipe is adapted from New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman's "No-Knead" bread. In the end, I just hope I don't get sued for making such delicious bread.

Whisk together dry ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1/2 tablespoon salt

Mix in liquids:
3/4 c. water
2 tablespoons vinegar (calls for white, but I used apple cider)
3/4 c. light beer (I didn't have any beer around that seemed appropriate for bread-baking, so I used a bit more water, but I am anxious to try some different brews to play with the flavor a little)

Let dough rise covered 8-18 hours.

This is the important part:
Put your covered baking dish (Dutch oven, round casserole dish, or what-have-you) in the oven at a face-melting 500º for 20 minutes while you make the dough into a nice ball and let it rest for a bit. After the baking dish is hot (an understatement), put your dough-ball on parchment paper and into the baking dish, and bake at 425º for about 30 minutes. Then uncover and bake for another 30 or so.

When you finally open your oven, you should see a glow like the one emitting from the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. That's how good this bread is.

Crust & Crumb

Bread is good. However, I have never been a baker. I've stayed away from pastries, cakes, pies...pretty much all things that require a precise combination of ingredients, baking temperature, and time in the oven.

Part of the reason I've never baked bread is because I tend to prefer crusty, chewy bread over dense, dry brick loaves. But I always assumed that there was some secret to baking good bread that was squirreled away in the Catacombs of Paris.

Then, the other day, I came across a simple bread "no-knead" bread recipe with a picture that looked like this:














Pretty much my dream bread.
Turns out, it is pretty easy. Just flour, water, yeast, vinegar, and salt. The recipe also recommends putting in a bit of a light lager for some extra flavor.
I think the key is that you bake it in a round baking dish, like a Dutch oven or Pyrex, which you heat up to molten temperatures before baking the bread.
I could not believe that my bread came out so nice. It was everything I could have ever hoped for. I will now bake bread all the time.

It's just big rice...Orzo I Thought

Orzo is actually pasta pretending to be rice. But regardless, it's really good, especially when mixed with the following ingredients (served hot or cold):

- Olive Oil
- Red wine vinegar
- Artichoke hearts
- Garlic
- Tomato
- Olives (Black, green, take yr. pick)
- Feta

You could also throw some pine nuts in for good measure. This is a dish that I saw at the grocery store one time and decided that instead of paying for someone else to make it, I'd just make up a good approximation and call it my own. I'm not really precise with quantities, so I try to just mix it up to have a good balance of the salty flavors with the fresh tomato.

Posole

Posole is a Mexican soup that has its origins in ancient Mayan sacrifices, and is traditionally made from the meat of yearling goat. Seriously, Mel Gibson can't get enough of it. Okay, not really. But it is Mexican.

My posole starts with pork shoulder slow-cooked with garlic, onions, and chilies until tender, then pulled apart into spoon-sized chunks.

The rest is pretty easy. The seasoned pork goes into a pot with chicken stock, salt, pepper, garlic, hominy (really the key to the whole soup), coarsely chopped chilies (as hot as you want), and black beans (or black eyed peas). Simmer this for about 30 minutes or so. At times I have added sour cream to thicken it up a bit and make the broth a bit richer. I also often add some chipotle if we have it around. It offers a nice smoky flavor and a good kick.

Top with sour cream, wedge of lime.

If the wedge of lime didn't intrigue you, then maybe this news story will:
"The Mexican military accused Santiago Meza Lopez, known as the "Pozole Maker" after local stew, of dissolving 300 bodies in acid for a suspected former lieutenant of a Tijuana-based drug cartel."

Acid-Dissolved human flesh really adds a tangy flavor that you just can't get from pork.

Here Goes Day 2

I like Brussels sprouts. They're like tiny little bite-size cabbages. They are also the quintessentially hated vegetable in kid-centered comics and cartoons. Seriously, Dennis the Menace, Calvin, and of course, those ever-precocious Family Circus tykes, abhor Brussels sprouts like none other. Spinach is another oft-disliked vegetable, but at least it has Popeye behind it. Brussels sprouts have all the coolness of, well, Belgium.







However, Brussels sprouts are, in fact, delicious.

I like them either roasted in the oven or sauteed. Whole, halved, or quartered all work equally well. My basic sprouts recipe:

-Olive oil
-Salt and Pepper
-Sliced almonds or pine nuts

The oven-roasting is nice because the edges get a little bit crispy.

New Year's Resolution

I like to cook, so this blog is going to be about some foods that I like to cook. And some food ideas that I don't know if I like yet because I haven't tried them. And maybe about some foods that I don't even know exist yet.

I also like music, so maybe I'll throw in some good musical selections for cooking.

I don't like to drive in traffic, so I'll avoid that topic altogether.

I will enter one food idea each day. Some recipes that I have made up in the past, some that are just ideas in the gestation process and have not come to full fruition, and maybe some that I steal from the Food Network. Maybe one day I'll just write the name of a fruit. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often. I trust that my audience knows its fruits quite well.


I love ribs. But not in the catchy Chili's theme song sort of way that you're thinking.
Short ribs.
I don't even know what part of the cow they come from. Do cows have different size ribs? My ribs tend to be all pretty much uniform length.






Here's how I might make short ribs:
-Port Wine
-Beef Broth
-Bay Leaves
-Onion
-Shallot
-Orange Zest
-Cinnamon
-Currants

Saute the onion and shallot, put all the stuff together and braise (don't actually know the definition of braise) or maybe just throw in the slow cooker. That always works.
Then, reduce the juices into a delicious demi-glace (again, way out of my scope of practice here), really emphasizing the citrus. The idea is to make a really flavorful port wine reduction with some orange flavor. Maybe even carmelize the onion and shallot with some orange marmelade.

Serve with leafy greens, maybe polenta. Pureed parsnips are supposed to be in this year, but I'll have to get back to you on that.