#conceptdinner, #failure

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So what if the entire dinner was yellow? Fun, right? A new way to get the kids to try new foods? A fun new game? Nope, just a lot of work. Purple dinner is cancelled. 

the judy bird

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It was my second year on Turkey duty for the annual Moshan Thanksgiving. For the 20+ guests, I decided to dry brine (something I'd been reading about.) The Judy bird is a very simple recipe adapted from San Fransisco chef Judy Roger's French take on roasted chicken. It's almost too simple: cover with salt and let sit for four days in fridge. Then uncover the bird and let it dry out for a day. Then rub with butter and pepper and cook for four hours.

Deliciously moist and beautifully brown! In fact it only took about three hours in a fairly hot oven. With the turkey, I made this stuffing which I thought was the best part of the whole dinner. I made it a few days ahead and froze it in a foil tray. And finally, also a few days in advance, I made Mark Bittman's Make-Ahead-Gravy base and added drippings from the turkey after it was cooked. By the way, for all of these dishes I used my Crock a Stock. 

easy chicken cutlets

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Over thanksgiving weekend, with 6 adults and 4 kids staying in Edgehill for three nights, I had the opportunity to do some cooking on that fabulous old stove. One night I made a version of Barefoot Contessa's seafood stew (I eliminated shrimp and added more cod to keep the price down; also replaced potatoes with parsnips.) I also made chicken cutlets from memory and it seemed to work very well, so I wrote it down here.

Edgehill Chicken Cutlets

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Pound 4 chicken breasts to about 1/2 inch thickness. Set up three bowls
  3. Set up three bowls with 1. flour with salt and pepper 2. 2 eggs mixed with 1 tbsp water 3. panko and Parmesan (mostly panko)
  4. Dip into flour, then egg, then panko.
  5. Heat large skillet over med-high heat and add t tbsp vegetable oil and 1 tbsp butter. When hot add breasts one or two at a time and cook on each side about 4 minutes until brown. (Add more oil and butter to cook additional cutlets if pan seems dry.) Transfer to baking sheet and put in oven for 10-15 minutes or until cooked through.
  6. Meanwhile, add 1/2 cup white wine or chicken broth to pan and scrape up cooked bits. When liquid has almost evaporated add 1 tbsp butter and 1/2 squeezed lemon to finish sauce. Pour over chicken to serve. 

crock a stock

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Thinking about Thanksgiving in a couple weeks has started me thinking about stock-that essential flavoring that I always leave to the last minute and which always adds more time and cleanup to every recipe. So yesterday while shopping at fairway I bought a bunch of chicken wings with the vague memory of an easy stock that didn't require the whole chicken (or whole carcass). I came home and did some research about easy stocks and discovered a whole thread about making stock in the slow cooker. I decided to try Sara Moulton's Chicken Stock recipe. I skipped the parsley and used the chicken bones from the rotisserie chicken that Michael and Mack were demolishing for lunch. (I saved the extra chicken for another meal or salad.) It turned out a very tasty stock that didn't require a lot of mess or extra steps (no excessive straining, defatting, etc.)I boiled it down some to reduce and concentrate it then froze in in 4-c and 2-c portions.

But I still had 3 pounds of chicken wings in my fridge so I started looking for a more traditional stock recipe and stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen's Perfect Uncluttered Chicken Stock—that happened to be made in a slow cooker! It seems this is sort of a thing. And why not? You're just slow cooking all the ingredients then straining out the liquid. So next I dumped the wings, onion, garlic, salt (and added carrot, celery, peppercorns, thyme and a bay leave ala Moulton.) 10 hours later i had a rich stock (more flavorful and complex than Moulton's recipe) that I could freeze for the weeks ahead. This is the kind of ctockpot use I can appreciate. Less mess, no stove on for many hours. Done.

stock from Smitten Kitchen

me and my slow cooker

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One problem with the crock pot is that I don't feel comfortable improvising. So today when the boys went to Long Island and I had a craving on the first really cold day of the year for soup, I made up my own recipe. It was vaguely based on ideas I had read about but basically I made a quick sautee of onion, garlic, spices, olive oil and tomato paste then added broth/water and some veggies. Throughout the day I've been throwing stuff in, like more veggies, chickpeas, some Freekah (super grains), chard leaves, etc. So right now it's a boiling experiment waiting for its revelation. I even turned the heat to high just to get it going.

Update: Veggie Soup was amazing. Michael loved it and we had it for dinner twice and lunch once. Success.

more about me and my slow cooker

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So I'm kind of obsessed with my slow cooker (some people call it a crock pot but I think those people bought theirs between 1940-1980.) I bought one a couple of years ago, originally for my mother-in-law who does not cook. She can boil — pasta and eggs. She can microwave takeout containers and she makes a mean salad but actual cooking (sauteeing, roasting, baking, broiling, braising, grilling, frying) is not her thing.

Of course she never used it and it stayed at her house gathering dust from the one time I used it there. (On Passover I made Smitten Kitchen's Tangy Spiced Brisket which was tasty but despite all that slow cooking, it was still a little tough. I might even try this recipe again, in the oven.) I also tried Sara Moulton's short ribs which was recently published by the AP News. This was really good but a little too rich for me. And not actually all that easy.

And this is my thing with the slow cooker. If you're already sauteeing onions, garlic, adding spices, browning meat on the stove before you put it in the cooker, why not just cook it on low in a pot ON the stove. I like being able to turn the thing on and forget about it. It's kind of exciting to see it transform over time. But I can cook without it so either 1. there's something unique about the actual vehicle and the way it cooks the food or 2. it's a throw-everything in and let it rip so you can't do it fast and easy.

I started experimenting with Cooks Illustrated's Slow Cooker Revolution. Those guys cooked a million briskets before nailing down the perfect recipe. (They even invented a technique of microwaving onions and spices before adding to sauce.) I've now made Mexican Chicken, Everyday Chili, Tortilla Soup with chicken, Tequila and lime Turkey Chili and Cauliflower and Cheese sauce (which was just dense and clumpy and wound up in the garbage disposal.) Basically I've made every kind of Mexican stew. And Michael has kindly suggested I move on.

And I'm trying to figure out a new angle for the slow cooker because I'm not done with the thing yet. The stews benefited from long and slow because the meat got tender and the flavors melded. That said, the prep was fairly intensive and they were all somewhat similar. I've seen Sara Lee of the Food Network literally throw a raw roast into a slow cooker and pour in some canned broth and voila-dinner. But is the roast any good? If so, this might be a new direction.

when your coleslaw disappears

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We celebrated the 4th of July on the 5th of July because rain was expected and there was too much traffic to go to Long Island on a Friday evening. The Davis/Chases came to Cove Road and we joined Brook's friends from DC who had three kids. So there were 10 adults and 8 kids who needed to be fed and a whole lot of mess to be cleaned up.

Then someone threw out the cabbage. A large ziplock bag of hand-shredded green cabbage and ribboned carrots that I had been marinating in salt and cider vinegar for 12 hours. Despite a passionate search no one could find it and we had to call off the dogs. Actually, Emma, the dog, who is usually all over me when I"m cooking was oddly nowhere to be found.

A note: Colelaw is coleslaw is coleslaw. Except if you live near a deli in Long Island where the coleslaw looks just like the potato salad and the macaroni salad and the shrimp salad because they are all just small plastic containers of mayonnaise. I know someone people love the stuff but for some reason it totally grosses me out so I decided this year to make the salads.

I also made Spanish spice-rubbed grilled chicken which was delicious--even cold the next day-- and easy. It's also a good model for grilled chicken on the bone: brine, rub, grill. I made a few changes to the recipe which was already changed a few times since it started with Bobby Flay. I used multiple chicken parts, not just breasts. Also, when I discovered that the garden was growing spearmint not mint (which may have made it to taste like toothpaste), I skipped the sauce. I just did a quick yogurt sauce--plain whole yogurt, lemon juice, chopped parsley, drop of honey, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then watered it down a bit. It did the trick.

With that I served this  watermelon feta mint salad ...but I added cherry tomatoes cut in half because the watermelon was a little worn out.  (By the way, I love Jacques Pepin. So old school French but increasingly practical for home cooking.)

Back to the cabbage. Since my original was gone, I bought a bag of pre-shredded coleslaw mix and doused it with white vinegar and salt, then tossed it with the sauce I had made earlier: yogurt, mayo, mustard (see below). Despite or perhaps because of the initial cabbage disaster, several people said it was the best coleslaw of their lives. Hmmm...maybe marinating is useless. Maybe everyone was hungry. Maybe everyone was begin nice because they threw away my cabbage? We'll never know.

But just in case the truth was spoken, here's the recipe

Do-over Coleslaw

  1. Mix shredded cabbage mix with 2 tablespoons white vinegar and 1/2 tsp salt and let it sit for one hour.
  2. Then add dressing:
  • 1 cup Greek yogurt
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tsp Dijon
  • splash of pickle juice
  • one garlic clove grated
  • Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

sous-vide, sort of

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Last week our friend David bragged that for fathers day he was making the all-time best pork chops. After years of trial and error, he had determined that thick pork chops from the farm marinated for 24 hours then sous vide at a low temp and briefly seared on the grill makes the perfect chop. Apparently he was right. Or at least that's what he proudly reported back.

The idea got me thinking...sous vide pre grill? Kind of brilliant. So this weekend at Loves Folly I made this recipe. It was a lot of work without a great stove or a sous vide machine or even a vacuum sealer like David has. I had to wing it and closely monitor the temperature, sliding the pot on and off the burner, adjusting temperatures every 20 minutes. But it worked-at least it was a revelation in sirloin cooking. The meat was super tender but tasty and perfectly charred on the outside so it didn't have that slippery grey feeling that just sous voiding can produce.

I served it with a simple salad and this amazing Zucchini Soup by Alinea chef Grant Achatz.

Seared Sous-Vide-style Tri Tip

  • One 2-pound tri-tip roast (can also use sirloin)
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground pepper
  • 2 tablespoons thyme leaves
  • 3 large garlic cloves, minced
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing
  1. Heat a large pot of water until it registers 134° on a digital probe or candy thermometer. Season the roast generously with salt and pepper. Rub all over with the thyme and garlic and transfer to a large, BPA-free resealable freezer bag. Add the butter and seal all but 1 corner. Press out all the air then seal.
  2. Add the bag with the roast to the pot and cook at 134° (or as close as you can get it on a regular stove) until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part registers 130°, about 1 hour and 45 minutes.
  3. Transfer the roast to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. Scrape off and discard the thyme and garlic.
  4. Light a grill or preheat a skillet. Pat the roast dry with paper towels, then brush with oil and season lightly with salt and pepper. Cook the roast over very high heat, turning once, until nicely browned all over, 5 to 7 minutes. Return the roast to the cutting board and let rest for another 10 minutes. Thinly slice the meat against the grain and serve.

zucchini soup

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This is seriously one of the best soups I have ever made.

Silky Zucchini Soup c/o Grant Achatz

  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground pepper
  • 1 1/2 pounds zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick
  • 2/3 cup vegetable stock or low-sodium broth
  • Julienned raw zucchini, for garnish
  1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter in the olive oil. Add the onion and garlic, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderately low heat, stirring frequently, until softened, 7 to 8 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the stock and 1 1/2 cups of water and bring to a simmer; cook until the zucchini is very soft, about 10 minutes.
  2. Working in 2 batches, puree the soup in a blender until it's silky-smooth. Return the soup to the saucepan and season with salt and pepper. Serve it either hot or chilled, garnished with julienned zucchini. The soup can be refrigerated overnight.

pistachio pasta

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 Yesterday Nate told me he made up something new to eat.
“You did?!” I gasped as if he had learned to fly.  
“I put a banana on top of a pistachio.”
 “YUM! You put those two things together?: I tried to be cool.
 “No!” he said “I put the banana ON TOP of the pistachio.
 “Oh that’s cool. Like you mix cheese and pasta.”
“Or banana and pasta,” he suggested.
“Hmmm. Or tomatoes and bread!”
“Or banana and pasta.”
“What about pistachio and pasta?”
“Hmm… he thought about it. “Or banana and pasta. “

Eight hours later when it was time for dinner, I announced with great excitement “Pistachio and pasta for dinner”! Okay, he said. Nate shelled and crushed the nuts so he felt like he was helping. We made a joint decision to add some parmesan cheese. In the end it was almost a pistachio pesto—crushed nuts, cheese and olive oil…very sophisticated and yet childlike.

Of course, Nate refused to eat it and started picking out the bits of nut. I realized then that I should have left them whole. That when Nate said banana ON TOP of pistachio he meant NOT MIXED TOGETHER.


This is a good lesson for me. But wait isn’t it me who is supposed to be giving the lessons…clearly we are still on the wrong path.  

class breakfast

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I signed up to make muffins for Family Breakfast Potluck in Nate's class and my first thought was: how can I make something that requires almost no effort but isn't store bought (I am class mom after all!) .

But then I started reading food blogs for my new column in Brooklyn Based and I came across many exciting muffin recipes by mom-bloggers who are way more energetic and patient than me. Adding fiber cereal and chia seeds and all the amazing ingredients that I"m sure the other kids in Nate's class would eat but Nate won't. And they were all far more complicated recipes that I would spend hours making and then be disappointed that Nate rejected-we've done this routine too many times.

So I basically made our usual add eggs, milk, oil to whole wheat pancake mix then poured the batter into small muffin tins, threw in a couple blueberries and a drop of Nutella and baked for 10 minutes. They were pretty yummy (though toppings tended to settle at the bottom during cooking.) I served them in an empty egg container because they were the exact size of the holes.

Lemme say they were not a hit. I think they looked too healthy next to the frozen mini waffles, cookies, doughnuts and bagels (lame!).  The best dish was eggs baked in muffin cups sprinkled with bacon pieces. Next year I'm making that!




chicken grill

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I highly recommend this recipe for grilled chicken breasts from Once Upon a Chef

  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1¾ pounds total)
  • 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 large garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1-1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons lemon zest, from one lemon

  1. Place chicken breasts between 2 pieces of wax paper and, using a meat mallet, pound to an even ½-inch thickness.

  2. Mix all ingredients except chicken together in a 1 gallon zip-lock bag. Add chicken breasts and massage marinade into meat until evenly coated. Seal the bag and place in a bowl in the refrigerator (the bowl protects against leakage); let the chicken marinate at least 4 hours or up to 12 hours.

  3. Clean grill and preheat to high. Lightly dip a wad of paper towels in vegetable oil and, using tongs, carefully rub over grates several times until glossy and coated. Place chicken breasts on the grill (make sure they are well-coated with the marinade; the more garlic, lemon zest and herbs on the chicken, the better!). Grill, covered, for 2-3 minutes per side.

smart moms

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My first column for The Pickiest Eaters on Brooklyn Based inspired some great ideas from local moms:
 

  1. Christy:  I mix in an egg yolk (not the whole egg because he notices the white part) into the shredded cheese for extra protein in cheese quesadillas.  
  2. Every once in a while for a special treat, I’ll mix a box of devil’s food cake mix with a can of pureed pumpkin and bake at 400 for 20 minutes (cake or muffins).  
  3.  I make and store these purees in the freezer (http://www.thesneakychef.com/free_recipe_white_puree.php), orange puree (http://www.thesneakychef.com/free_recipe_orange_puree.php) and purple puree (http://www.thesneakychef.com/free_recipe_purple_puree.php) and add them when I think I can get away with it.  
  4.  I add Superfood Kidz (chocolate) to Max’s oatmeal.  He calls it Chocolate Oatmeal and thinks it is a treat.
  5. Pureed tofu in anything I can get away with...
  6. we have "green mac & cheese" and "pink mac & cheese". The green one is spinach and cream, and the pink one is yam and cream. The point is to make sure it has a smooth solid, zero small pieces, texture. It's really reallyyummy! We also cook only the brown rice pasta. they have it in all different shapes. 
  7. From The Science of Picky Eaters "Biologists have discovered that, out of the thousands of genes in our D.N.A., there's one that determines if we like the taste of some healthy greens or if we can't stand them. BUT.....  It turns out, over time, that our sense of smell changes, and that affects our sense of taste, no matter what kind of genes we have. .....So next time you get frustrated with your picky eater, take a moment to relax and remember, their genes may be influencing their food choices just as much as you are."
  8. http://www.pereg-spices.com/about.asp

two ingredient pizza

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A few months ago Kirsten, babysitter extraordinaire who works for Remi's family, told me about a recipe she had found online. Pizza dough made from 1 cup yogurt and 1 cup flour. That's it!! I was skeptical but she swore by it. I  first tried it out at my inlaws and it was a hit, even with the adults. The dough was crispy and soft and full of flavor.

Since then I make it frequently, always including the kids in the process because it's so super simple and I like the idea of them learning to cook or at least appreciate cooking. But the other day when I suggested we make yogurt pizza for dinner, Nate said he wasn't interested.

"What if I make the dough and you guys do toppings?" I suggested

"Yeah Sure." His new response to everything.

This actually worked much better because it was faster and not nearly as messy without the kids throwing flour all over the floor and rubbing yogurt in their hair. 

Two-Ingredient Pizza

  • 1 cup plain whole yogurt (I use Fage)
  • 1 cup self-rising flour (or add 1 tsp baking powder  and 1/4 tsp salt to all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 450.

Mix in large bowl and then knead (I do this in the bowl to save cleanup) for 5 minutes, adding flour if needed, until it's tacky but not sticky. At this point I cheat a bit and add a few drops of olive oil to the dough, but you don't have to. Roll the dough out thin and place either on a board (if you're transferring to a hot pizza stone) or on the oiled underside of a sheet pan. Then hand it over to the kids with a bowl of tomato sauce (canned) and a bowl of shredded Mozzarella. You can put the pan right in the oven or slide the masterpiece onto your stone.

Bake about 10-12 minutes until cheese is bubbly and crust is starting to brown.

everybody is nuts

In the land of crazy this month, Nate has actually shown some good strides in eating better (of course this happens as soon as I start a column called The Pickiest Eater for Brooklyn Based, which is all about how he eats nothing. He added strawberries and eggs and sausage on toothpicks (brilliant strategy!) to his growing roster.

Unfortunately, Mack seems to be giving up eating. If he absolutely can't have a "baba" and we've made that incredibly clear and there's been tears and flying objects, he'll occasionally stuff a bagel or 8 pieces of pasta in his mouth which simultaneously announcing "DONE!" No amount of coaxing can get him back to the table. He's a firecracker, always moving and always about to blow. He also is the kind of kid who prefers carrots to chocolate cake. He loves fruits and veggies and this weekend sucked on a lemon like I used to do as a kid. I felt proud and excited. But why isn't he eating better?

And in the third ring, Michael has adopted the Paleo Diet ala Dougy Lebow, which is Paelo plus booze and coffee...oh and yogurt but only in the morning. It was supposed to last a month but he's going into 6 weeks. He has lost weight and wants to lose more but mostly he likes not being hungry and eating bacon every day.

This was breakfast yesterday.

This was breakfast today.

It's Easton farmers market smoked ham with our CSA eggs fried in bacon fat (which we now use as oil because the Meat Hook Cookbook told us to and they are the coolest guys I can think of.) Although I haven't gone full cavewoman, Michael's diet has changed my eating and cooking too. There is very little bread in the house and we never have pasta for dinner. I think it is a healthier way of eating in concept (I"m also reading the Paelo Code) but I have a hard time with all or nothing type things. So I also eat ice cream.

Creatively, I've enjoyed the challenge. In the morning, I used to put a cereal box on the table and now there's 2 or 3 pans on the stove -- eggs, sausage, ham, bacon. The kids are starting to eat this kind of breakfast too (though usually in addition to waffles soaked in syrup.) And dinner is always some kind of fresh from the farm meat or fish and salad.