In the Name of the Father

As some of you well know, my father taught me to cook and to love good food. I'm so happy to share one of his newest recipes with you all. Also, I don't have a photo to accompany it, so here's a photo of Daniel Day Lewis.

And here's Dad's recipe for Roasted Butternut Squash & Red Pepper Soup:

Ingredients:

1 really large Butternut squash, seeds scooped out and quartered

1 large jar fancy roasted red peppers, drained

3 medium leeks, white part only, cleaned and sliced thin, about 1-1/2 or 2 cups

1 package frozen corn bits/niblets

1 32 oz. box chicken stock

4 tbs. + 2 tsp. olive oil

2 large cloves garlic, peeled

Garnishes:

4-6 oz. crumbled blue cheese

3 links chicken sausage, sliced into 3/8” long disks

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 deg. F. Rub 2 teaspoons of olive oil on squash quarters, sprinkle with coarse salt and roast skin side up @ 375 deg. F on cookie sheet covered with baking parchment for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the leeks and garlic, drain the roasted peppers, and slice the sausage disks. You can has andouille or other spicy pork sausage.

Remove squash from oven and cool. Sweat the leeks, garlic and ½ to 2/3 of the frozen corn with a little salt and pepper in a 6 quart heavy saucepan. Peel the squash, or scoop out the edible portions and add to pot with peppers and the chicken stock to cover by ½”. Add water or more stock to cover by ½”.

Raise to the boil, then simmer for 30 – 40 minutes until mixture is so tender that it easily breaks up with a spoon. Meanwhile, brown off the sausage disks in a skillet and reserve.

Reduce heat to warm, puree with an emersion blender until smooth, and stir in remaining corn niblets. Add salt and pepper to taste, and, if desired, squeeze in ½ lemon to brighten the flavor.

Serving:

Slice baguette.

Place a bunch of browned sausage disks in bottoms of up to 4 soup bowls, and spoon in a few ladles of the soup. Place a generous tablespoon of crumbled blue cheese on top in the center. Serve with the bread.

Makes 6 servings.

Comfort food... and Rachel Griffiths

I had a stressful morning, a day where I juggled seven things at once (but managed to snag a commission to write a piece for HuffPo, holler!), and to top it all off, a positive, but emotionally draining conversation with my mother. At the end of a day like that you need a few things, chief among them, a good drink and a good meal. I chose to make myself the following black bean dish while watching the two-hour Brothers & Sisters special that aired on Sunday (thanks, Hulu!). I love this dish, and I love that show. The black beans are complex, flavorful, good for you, and comforting. Brothers and Sisters is... just comforting. Rob Lowe and Rachel Griffiths (Ms. Griffiths, will you be my girlfriend? I've loved you since Muriel's Wedding, and I promise I'll never stop.) make up for all Callista Flockhart's many, many flaws. OH GOD, who decided inhaling through your teeth was the same thing as acting??? And Sally Field, I KNOW you can act bitch, so why don't you? I mean really, you tell your dead husband you hate him with the same tone that you tell the kids you're afraid you've ruined the roast! You're better that.

Black Beans for a Tough Day

Ingredients:
- 32 oz canned black beans, do not drain (you can be a hero and soak some dried ones, but remember, this is something to make at the end of a long day... although when using canned beans, I mandate LOW SODIUM)
- 16 oz. canned chopped, pureed, or diced tomatoes, drained (if you're one of those tomato haters, feel free to replace this with some tomato paste)
- low sodium chicken or veggie stock (a tad less than one cup)
- 5 scallions, chopped
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 sweet potatoes, diced into 1/2" chunks
- 2 small or 1 and 1/2 larger green peppers, diced
- the following spices, to taste: cumin, coriander, basil, oregano, cocoa powder (no sugar), smoked sweet paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper
- lime juice, low fat sour cream, diced avocado, chopped fresh cilantro (these four you throw on top just before serving)

Step one: Heat olive oil and the butter in a pot and saute the scallions, garlic, and sweet potatoes for about 15 minutes, season with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Step two: Add in the peppers and continue to saute for 5 minutes; add in a another pinch of salt and pepper.

Step three: Add in the tomatoes, the stock, the beans, and the spices (but no more salt, trust me, unless you used dried beans, you little gourmand). Bring to a boil for five minutes, then turn down to a simmer and let it go until it reaches the consistency of chili. Serve topped with lime, sour cream, cilantro, and avocado. Pour yourself a nice grenache or a malbec or a beer and enjoy the hell out of it.

They Don't Have to Be Roasted

Some time ago we all decided that you simply MUST roast your Brussels sprouts (Sacha, I totally checked, capitalize the B, no apostrophe). Maybe it's a fear of the bitter, slimy gross mini-cabbages of our youth... maybe it's a shameless love of caramelizing (a love I certainly embrace). But there comes a time in every cook's life when you look in the fridge and see a carton of Brussels sprouts and not much else and wonder what the hell you're going to do with them. And you want to do something new. And that's what inspired this recipe.

Ingredients
- one container Brussels sprouts
- 2 table spoons of unsalted butter
- half of one very large lemon, cut into several large chunks
- olive oil
- salt
- 5 anchovy filets & capers, chopped up (optional, but preferred)... but if ya don't use anchovies, please throw in a few capers anyway
- mushrooms (I used shitakes I found on sale, but you don't have to)
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 scallions chopped

Wash the Brussels, chop off the bottoms and cut them in half. I was lazy last night. Probably I ought to have sliced them into many leaves. But you don't have to. Begin by sauteeing the Brussels in a skillet with the garlic, butter, olive oil, scallions and lemons on medium-high heat. The Brussels will turn bright green, and you will gaze upon their beauty. Sprinkle a LITTLE salt on them too. Good. After they get a bit soft, throw in the mushrooms and anchovies and/or capers and turn the heat down to lowish.

Cook mushrooms through, and you are done. You can also throw in a splash of water, or, better, UNSALTED stock when you put in the mushrooms to create a kind of sauce and put this all over pasta (that's what I did). Enjoy!

EDIT: I forgot to tell you that I highly recommend seasoning the Brussels with a fair amount of chili flakes before serving. And definitely some Parmesan if you're going to serve over pasta.

Nina-the-cat says "I hated it!"

lavender shortbread

there's a great essay by andre aciman called "lavender" that traces the scent throughout his personal history. it's in those "best american essay" collections that one of us feels really ambivalent about. but i think this particular one david foster wallace edited, and both of us are pro-that.

if one of us had to write a similar essay, she would write it about ginger. she drank ginger ale with breakfast and sometimes instead of breakfast for years; she was sick a lot as a little kid and had it then, too. her favorite stir fries (and for years she could only cook stir fries) contain ginger. she's not a binger, but she can binge on ginger, and she kind of likes how it hurts. she ate a box of ginger altoids a day while lifeguarding the summer after college; she can eat an entire bag of crystallized ginger in one sitting. there's ginger tea and gingerbread and oh, also whiskey ginger ice cream. that too. dark and stormys in maine during the summer on the rocks in front of her house. much like one of us, ginger's got a lot of personality and can sometimes be a little harsh and has to restrain itself not to bulldozer the rest of the room.

shoup, what would yours be?

anyway here is a JSTOR link to the first part of the essay. it's way more moving and less precious than you'd think. so is this recipe for lavender shortbread. it's obviously really good with tea in the afternoon, but i could also see you making a mean ice cream sandwich with some rosemary honey ice cream in it.



lavender shortbread:

1 1/2 cups pastry flour (yes, all purpose is totally fine)
1/2 cup rice flour (my next post will also use rice flour; it deserves its own post. shoup, do you cook with rice flour?)
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla extract
1-2 T dried lavender (available at any good spice store. i get mine at whole foods).

sift flour together and set aside. in your kitchenaid apple green stand mixer, if you have one, cream butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla until it's all fluffy. mix in the flour by hand, then the lavender. you don't want to overwork it. kind of like a pie crust in that way.

now, here's where i cheat. with shortbread you're supposed to refrigerate and then roll it out and make cutouts, but i do not have the patience to refrigerate dough, plus i would eat it all because i am trying to write this essay about ginger. so i just roll balls and then squish then in my hands until they're about 1/4 inch thick.

bake at 325 for 20 minutes until golden brown on the edges.

Mashed Sunchokes (as requested by Sara)

You thought we were gone! You thought we were too busy canoodling and pontificating about the emerging art scene in Detroit and reading Deleuze and drinking firewater! But fear not, dear readers, we are here with our kitties and we missed you very, very much.

One of us is Swedish.
One of us is Italian, but you probably think she is Jewish.
She is eating a 3 Musketeers Bar and is really excited to tell you about sunchokes, AKA, Jerusalem Artichokes, which despite their names, are also not Jewish. But like her, they probably wish that they were.

Did you know that when you go to Google Image search and type in Jerusalem, Jerusalem Artichoke is the third entry? Did you also know that the Jerusalem Artichoke, in addition to not being a native of Jerusalem, is also not an artichoke? It is the tuber of the sunflower.

See? You know this guy:










And now you'll know how to cook this guy:










The skin is very thin, but you must remove it. This is arduous. You won't like doing it. You might get lazy and not get all the skin off. That's fine. Unless you're working for Daniel Boulud, who will kill you with his laser eyes. Probably the sunchokes will be very dirty when you buy them, so you must also wash them thoroughly. Then you must boil them in salted water until you can easily stick a fork through them. Then you will mash them. I prefer to use ye olde Cuisinart for this. I mash them with some butter, roasted garlic (or, failing that, garlic that you caramelized in some olive oil, or, failing that, minced garlic), salt, pepper, milk or cream (which you can cut with stock if you like), and low fat sour cream. Ratios are up to you, depending on how thick you want your mash. When they are done I like to mix in some dill and tarragon, but you don't have to (but you should). They have a wonderful, earthy (but not too) flavor. Sometimes I will roast some parsnips beforehand and throw them in with the JA's during the mashing. They are a delightful accompaniment to any protein or with a melange of other veggies. I just wanted to say melange. Good night.

Chickpeas & Procrastination, via Nina The Person

as you know, dear readers, one of us lives with Mr. Pie the Cat and one of us lives with Nina the Cat.
one of us also has a friend known around the internet as Nina the Person.

Nina the Person is a wonderful chef.
she shared this recipe with me, and i'm sharing it with you. i editorialize in the parentheticals. that sounds like a rap lyric or something.

ingredients:
3 tbs olive oil
1 large onion chopped
4 crushed garlic cloves
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 1/2 cup soaked chick peas
3 tbsp each chopped cilantro and parsley

methodology:
- fry onions in oil. you want to get them nice and soft. (i would probably add in some butter.)
- add garlic cloves
- stir in tumeric and add drained chick peas and cover with 2/14 cups water (i bet you could also use a mixture of stock and water)
- simmer for an hour and a half or till the beans are super tender. add salt and pepper when they have softened. you can add extra water if they get too dry. you want the liquid to reduce to a thick sauce at the end. then stir in herbs and cook for 5 mins more.

Nina the Person says the quality of the tumeric is crucial. if you live in New Yawk you can get some great stuff in my hood at Kalustyans. if you live in Chicago i used to go to a great Middle Eastern food store with Rich in Andersonville, but i don't remember the name. if you live in another place, you can go somewhere there.

be not afraid of cauliflower, or, so you like potatoes, right?

cauliflower, in all its mid-butchering, pre-roasted glory.


one of us is gay and has a mother named gay.
this same mother got really into the great potato scare of the early aughts, aka, the atkins diet.
while her daughter was wise enough to recognize that a diet that eschews fruit and vegetables for peanut butter and bacon is probably wack, she definitely started to see the glory of alternate starches. roasted cauliflower is just one of these. it takes the place of roasted potatoes quite deliciously (to be clear: i love potatoes too), and it's also a nice addition to an antipasto plate.

step 1: butchering the cauliflower.
you need to flip the cauliflower over and pick off the leaves. then you must take a sharp knife and cut out the stem/core. see the stem? stick the knife in parallel, you'll want it to go in about halfway into the head of cauli. cut around the stem, with the knife angled inward slightly. remove the stem/core. this is tough and not that flavorful. then pull apart the head into smaller pieces. you may then choose to cut them into even smaller pieces. NinaThePerson, I believe, likes to slice the cauli very thin. i am too lazy to do this usually, but the smaller the pieces, the better the caramelizing effect.

step 2: flava.
unless i slice it thin, i put the pieces of cauli right into a 1 1/2" or 2" deep roasting dish. i coat it in olive oil or a mixture of olive and hazelnut oil. if i have sliced it thin, it's best to lay it flat on a greased baking sheet and then drizzle with olive oil. you need a lot of oil. now for the flava! i like to use a hearty mixture of salt, pepper, curry powder, garam masal, and a little smoked, sweet paprika. however, you can also do salt, pepper and garlic powder. just mix this in with the oiled up pieces or sprinkle over the slices. if you go this route, please sprinkle the cauli with grated cheese at the end of the roasting process. you should feel free about experimenting with other flavors too. readers, please post if you have alternate ideas!

step 3: roast the hell out of it.
place the cauli into a 375 degree oven. roast it for about an hour, unless you sliced thin, then you need less time. check it after 20 minutes. you want it to get nice and golden brown, not burnt, so i make sure the rack is in the middle of the oven, maybe a wee bit higher.

step 4: eat it!
take the cauli out and serve it up. guests will be delighted. while i enjoy raw and steamed cauliflower too, a lot of people have traumatic childhood memories thereof. these people are often shocked by the effects of roasting on the cauliflower.

this photo is of some roasted cauli with cheese and sauteed scallions.



Maddy says yum.