New Year Revolutions

Smorgasbord

2010-06-19T20:20:00.000-04:00

I've been cooking, but not writing, so here is some catch-up (not ketchup).

I am not sure I have ever had sorrel soup before, let alone made it, which seemed incentive enough to try. We had some crossed wires, though, and ended up with not nearly enough sorrel for a decent sized pot. Fortunately for me, there were only two of us. The sorrel cooked quickly to almost nothing, and we ended up with barely two cups. I'm not sure I would make this soup again. It was very strong. To accompany it, I fixed a pot of penne pasta, to which I added roasted cauliflower and chopped walnuts. I also made a mistake here -- I wasn't thinking when I was marketing and bought the house brand of Parmesan, which is not nearly as flavorful as the type that is properly made and aged. All in all, this was a very pretty meal -- and not much more.

One of the better meals I made, and very simple, was grouper. I prepared the sauce in advance by skinning a tomato and adding capers, balsamic, and herbs. This was an excellent, pungent sauce and very easy to make. I cooked the fish on the stove top, with lots of butter, then ladled the topping over it after it had finished cooking. For a side dish, I again turned to the penne, mixing in three types of mushrooms. Oh my gosh. I have to make this one again.

I was itching to do something with hamburgers. I had read the best way is to grind your own meat in a food processor, but Darien gave me a Look, so I backed off. Instead, I just mixed in to the patties some Dijon mustard with cognac and chives. I also read that the meat should not be too lean; the fat enhances the flavor as it grills and helps to prevent the burgers from drying out. As a side dish, I made a bow tie pasta salad with grilled asparagus and red peppers. Both of these dishes turned out well. I can't say as much for the pear dessert I prepared. I simmered the pears in sugar and butter. They were supposed to caramelize, but they cooked a lot faster than I anticipated and the mixture burned. I placed them on puff pastry and topped with whipped cream and sour cream -- which sounds odd, but actually worked. Some of the Speckled Bird got in on the food action, so we had entertainment as well.

My latest effort was a berry pie. This is berry season, and we have been getting bushels from our community share. Antonia came over and directed, while I more or less implemented. Tart cherries, along with both red and black raspberries, was the call of the day. Antonia let them sit in a sugar and port sauce while I made the crust. I followed Julia Child's instruction to get my fingers into the dough. It was like making mud pies. The result was not pretty, but tasty. We drained the berries and boiled the juice down to pour over the pie after it came out of the oven. The pie baked for a full hour and a half. I have to say, I'm sorry I had to share this one. It was berry, berry good.

Out of the frying pan

2010-04-25T11:58:00.000-04:00

I had been thinking for some time about trying my hand at pizza. I wanted to make my own dough, and Antonia had talked about cooking it on the grill, so I decided to give it a shot.

Because I can't seem to approach any cooking task with simplicity in mind, I elected to make a dough with herbs in it. The recipe I found called for herbes de Provence. I had no idea what they were, so I did some quick research and started to mix up a batch from what I could find in the spice cabinet. Then I noticed that Darien already had a jar of the herbs she had bought at the market. Oh. Next step, mince some garlic, saute it with the herbs, and prepare to add to the dough.

The dough turned out to be an issue. It called for bread flour (which I had to purchase) and cornmeal, and for mixing in a food processor. The sugar and yeast mixture seemed to work well, but in mixing everything together, the dough seemed too sticky and glutinous. I ended up adding more flour than I think I should have, which ended up being a theme for the evening. Just as the dough was forming into a ball like it was supposed to, the Cuisinart froze. This was going to be an expensive pizza.

I kneaded the dough ball a bit and left to rise. Meanwhile, I started on the toppings. I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I put together my own, basing it around roasted tomatoes brushed with oil and herbs, a fennel/garlic/onion saute, and barbecued shrimp, planning to top everything with goat cheese. What I neglected was to adjust the size of the recipes appropriately, so I ended up with several times as much as was sufficient. Antonia helped out by consuming vast quantities of the shrimp before dinner.

I made a Dijon based dressing (red wine vinegar, shallots, garlic, thyme, olive oil), while Antonia put together the romaine salad with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and salami, proudly cut matchstick style.

The dough rose nicely and I began rolling out the pies. I had to use a lot of flour to keep things from sticking, and I think I could have rolled them all thinner. I stacked them up as I finished, just as the recipe called for, but this proved to be a problem later. When I was grilling one set of pies, the others that were sitting began to stick together. I had to do emergency surgery with a bag of flour while standing at the grill, trying not to let the others burn. It was not a pretty sight.

I put everything together and popped the pies in the oven to melt the cheese. In spite of the stress, and the rather dilapidated look of the pizza, it actually didn't taste all that bad. And it didn't end up costing all that much either -- I just found out that the food processor was not permanently damaged. Whew.

A simple meal

2010-04-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

With Peter coming home for Easter last weekend, we decided to celebrate Darien's birthday a week early. We asked her what she wanted for her meal, and she told us "to keep it as simple as possible."

Right. Like that was going to happen.

Antonia did some initial scouting around, and we decided that a French dinner would be appropriate, given that we will be going to France this summer. We smiled and told Darien we were following her dinner suggestions exactly as she wished.

I went shopping on Saturday and picked up most of what we needed. Since we would be slicing so many vegetables, and some needed to be julienned, Antonia decided that a mandoline slicer would make an excellent present from the boys. She purchased one and I picked it up from her cabin and secreted it away. So far, so good.

While Antonia and Darien were singing in church on Sunday, I got busy. After some fumbling around, I was able to julienne the carrots, celery, leeks, and other toppings for the sole. Since we were doing French, of course the whole pile was sauteed in a mound of butter. I added sliced mushrooms at the very end, and set everything aside in the refrigerator for later use. I then got to work on the crust for the tarte. This was the part that made me nervous, but it was surprisingly easy -- mix the dry ingredients, then add a slightly beaten egg and softened butter in a little crater and mash the whole thing together. I rolled it all into a ball and set it in the refrigerator to chill.

When Antonia arrived, we switched it into high gear. We gave Darien firm instructions not to enter the kitchen after she exclaimed how nice the salmon looked.

I started chopping and Antonia worked on the fish -- sole, not salmon -- preparing it in a baking dish for poaching. I put the mandoline to good use, slicing a the potatoes to a nice thinness, followed by the zucchini. I sliced the apples razor thin with the mandoline and Antonia placed them artistically on the pie dough that she had formed into a rough approximation of a circle. She then heaped a mound of sugar on top. It was so much sugar she didn't have the heart to use all the recipe called for, especially after she dribbled the honey on it. Maybe that is what made it taste so good.

This was a good dinner. I would never have been able to pull everything together without A., so props to her.

Mushroom mania

2010-03-27T01:12:00.000-04:00

I need to learn to moderate my ambitions. One complex recipe is enough for a meal. Two or three just lead to stress and mistimings.

Thankfully, Antonia stepped up and offered to be my sous-chef. She did a marvelous job, other than putting the tarragon and parsley in the wrong dish. Oh well.

I didn't look at the cooking times closely enough in the beginning, so I started with the four vegetable soup. I had to make the broth first -- carrot, celery, onions, shallot, leek, garlic, thyme, pepper, parsley. Rather than the canned chicken broth that the recipe called for, I used some of Darien's homemade vegetable broth made from leftover trimmings from various meals. After the broth was made, I added the potatoes, leeks, peas, and spinach. I had to cut up some more tarragon and parsley, after my sous-chef's misappropriation.

Antonia actually did most of the preparation for the main dish, a mushroom risotto. It called for over a pound of crimini mushrooms, in addition to a dried porcini (which Darien couldn't find, so she found a nice substitute). I should have started on this dish first, since I had to keep adding liquid, stirring, and cooking until the Arborio rice was plump and tender. The Parmesan and fresh parsley at the end were nice additions.

The last dish was a fresh broccoflower salad. What really made this dish was the tart dressing -- oil mixed with a yellow hard boiled yolk, garlic, and sherry vinegar. The broccoli was tossed with watercress, scallions, celery, pimento olives, capers, parsley, and the remainder of the egg.

I didn't have everything ready to go at once, so some things had to sit while the rest of the dishes caught up. After having eaten spoonfuls of rice as it was cooking, I was no longer in the mood for bread, so I dropped that from the menu. I also realized that rice in the risotto and potatoes in the soup was probably not the wisest decision. The meal was still tasty, however, and afforded us plenty of leftovers.

Peter's special meal

2010-03-14T00:38:00.000-05:00

Peter was coming home for spring break, so I decided to try and make him something. I initially wanted a crock pot recipe, but wasn't coming up with anything that appealed to me, so I settled on a shish kabob. I selected lamb since we don't have it often, and built the rest of the dishes around that.

I diced the lamb and then marinaded it for 24 hours in yogurt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cilantro, minced garlic, curry powder, and ground black pepper. But before the meat was even ready for grilling, disaster loomed. Peter's ride to South Carolina got complicated, and he decided not to come home. Like any good chef, I improvised. I invited the Speckled Bird over instead and the dinner proceeded.

The next evening the rest of the meal went together fairly easily. I started with the cucumber salad, since I had to leach much of the liquid out by salting the pieces and weighting them down in a colander for three hours. The bismati rice pilaf called for cardamom pods, which I didn't have, so I substituted powder, the only real variation I had to make. The cloves and cinnamon stick that I cooked in gave the rice an unusual flavor. While the pilaf cooked, I finished up the salad with a yogurt dressing, adding oil, mint, cumin, and garlic. Antonia cut up some fresh vegetables I had purchased. I rubbed oil on them and added some mint, then grilled them in a basket next to the lamb. I had some mini whole wheat pita pockets that I wrapped in foil and warmed up in the barbecue to complete the meal.

After dinner, the band broke the silence of the lamb and practiced in the front room. I think this was my best meal yet, both for the food and the company. Next time, Peter, you better come home when you say you will. I only have a few of these up my sleeve.

Darien Defaults

2010-03-07T20:12:00.000-05:00

I think I might have missed a week or two somewhere. But anyway ...

I flunked the bedtime last week. Totally. But that inspires me to do better this week.
On the gym front I didn't do too well either ... only two days.

On the Good News front I totally rocked with my new, New Year Revolution, which is to throw out one item a day. I have achieved this goal for the past three weeks, and have pictures to prove it.

Week six tackled by Darien

2010-03-07T19:35:00.001-05:00

Ok, I kind of failed on the early to bed routine last week. Just one or two nights out of four. I'll do better this week ... starting tonight!

On the exercise front, I made it to the gym four times. My session with fitness coach Camille was really worthwhile, and I'm finding that forgotten muscles are talking to me.

As far as my Valentine's Day Revolution, a picture is worth ... how many words?

So, for Valentine's Day I made another "revolution" and "gave" it to John.

My new resolution is to throw out one item a day. I start a new pile each week, adding to it each day and documenting it with a picture on Sunday. Then, everything gets sorted into three piles in the staging room: Goodwill, consignment, trash. Some weeks there is a give away to family members pile too. Staging room, you ask? That's the advantage of having a house that is too big. My goal is to get rid of enough stuff to enable us to move into the Condemnation Plantation--yay!

Linguine and sausage

2010-02-28T09:23:00.000-05:00

My foray into the kitchen continued, this time with a meal built around whole wheat linguine and sausage.The original was going to be a mushroom and dried tomato mix, but Antonia offered me some fresh Italian sausage from her dinner of the previous evening. She had picked it up at Belmont Butchery, so of course I had to use it.

The meal went together pretty quickly, and the timing was not too bad. The most fun was shoving the tenderized fennel to the edges of the skillet to make a crater, then sauteing in the middle some oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. I wanted to use a recipe from Karen's cast iron cookbook, so I did a simple sauteed zucchini dish, tossed in a Parmesan and garlic mixture.

There were two major mistakes with this meal. The first was a result of me not paying attention enough to the recipe, and when it came time to prepare the spinach salad I just dumped the oil and minced shallot on the leaves before I realized I was supposed to be sauteing them. I had to pick everything out to try and salvage things. The other issue I had was with timing. I got everything ready pretty much at the same time, but that meant the salad just stood and waited for us to get through the rest of the meal. Next time I will try serving and eating in stages, saving the final prep work on a dish until right before we eat it. It will interrupt the meal more, but the quality should be better.

We resolve to babysit in Minnesota!

2010-02-14T12:09:00.001-05:00

John's first Valentine's Day present was a 110-piece puzzle that he had to put together:

It features names of people and places that we will visit when we travel to Minneapolis/St. Paul in May! Yay! It took John exactly two hours and ten minutes to put this Wordle picture puzzle together.

Next John opened something which pertains to this blog. "Trashy Girl"--a promise from me to get rid of clutter and items we don't need, on a daily basis, in a public manner. That's right ... you, the reader, get to see the results! One item per day gets put in the Goodwill, Trash, or Consignment pile; these piles will be photographed weekly. Here is just some of our trash:

As far as last week, I got to bed on time for only one of my two work-nights. I got to the gym only twice, but I did shovel some snow ...

From the one who washes dishes

2010-02-08T08:39:00.001-05:00

It was worth it!

(and this wasn't all the dishes, by any means)

Bleeting of the lambs

2010-02-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

Darien ordered two lamb loin chops through our winter CSA, Fall Line Farms. Although they were small cuts of meat, I decided to build my meal around them. I selected dishes and ingredients that reminded of Mediterranean cultures. The lamb chops themselves were browned and then cooked in a mixture of chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, chopped kalamata olives, onions, red wine, rosemary, and parsley. The other main dish was a rice pilaf, but instead of making it the way Darien usually does with vermicelli, I added currants and toasted pine nuts, spiced up with cinnamon and turmeric. Darien suggested that for the liquid I use her homemade vegetable broth, which she has begun making by tossing all of her leftover odds and ends into a pot for boiling, and then freezing the mixture. It gave the pilaf a more flavorful, richer taste.

For my vegetable, I roasted asparagus. What made this special was a balsamic vinegar reduction, which was very easy to make. I dribbled on the reduction after roasting the spears, then followed with some virgin olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese.

Finally, I made a spinach salad with fresh white mushrooms. The recipe called for stale bread, which I didn't have, but found I could pop some bread in a low heat oven and get a similar effect. I fried the bread in hot olive oil to make my croutons, then used the remnants of the oil to saute some minced garlic and whisked in the juice from two fresh lemons for the dressing.

I had most of the ingredients on hand, so I had little shopping to do for this meal. I thought the different dishes worked well together. No part was in itself difficult, but keeping everything going and on schedule was a two hour trial. For such a meal as this, a larger stove would have been helpful. I feel sorry for the one who had to wash dishes after dinner.

Darien flees from week 5

2010-02-06T22:47:00.000-05:00

I blame it on the snow. Why the **** should I go to bed early when I don't have to go to work? My precisely calculated statistics show a trend toward staying up late this week. As a matter of fact, I got to bed by 11 just one work night. On the other hand, I only had one work night! If I'm lucky this trend will continue into next week ... snow snow snow snow snow snow ...

On the exercise front I didn't do too well either: I made it to the gym just 3 days, and John did most of the snow shoveling.

Weeks 3 & 4 check in -- Antonia and Jonathan

2010-02-01T09:59:00.003-05:00

Antonia -- yes!

Jonathan -- Here's a few things that he's done to man up/grow up this week . . .

Removed all vestiges of his childhood from his parents house (well, maybe not ALL, but everything that his mom isn't saving for grandchildren). It was a fraught weekend, and he was brutal in his commitment to getting rid of stuff (childhood stuffed animals, yearbooks, old art projects, photographs). The downside is now we have an absurd amount of Star Wars figures in our basement. Oh and did I mention the 6 foot tall Darth Vader cardboard cutout?
Took apart the gas fireplace and followed the hazy instructions on how to re-position the logs.
Drove our friends' van in the snow. I think this was his first snow-driving experience.

Darien: Week 4

2010-01-31T00:08:00.000-05:00

Four nights out of 5: check!

Beans: color me white

2010-01-26T23:40:00.000-05:00

I wanted to make something with white beans. I found a winter vegetable soup that uses cannellini beans. I used to think beans were beans, especially if they are white. I know better now. Cannellini beans are longer and larger than the typical navy white bean -- and navy beans themselves have several varieties, the most well-known being the great northern. All of these beans are typically referred to as kidney beans.

After I understood what I was after with the cannellini beans, I turned my attention to the pancetta. Sometimes called Italian bacon, pancetta is closer to a fatty prosciutto than to bacon, which is smoked. The fattiness of pancetta make it a good saute choice for flavoring a soup, which is what my recipe called for. First, however, I had to find the pancetta. I called the meat departments of several markets and no one had any. I learned that one could substitute the fatty end of prosciutto, or blanch a bacon that is not too smoked in a pinch. I was disappointed, but was happy to discover that when I went to the market I should have been talking to the deli people and not the butchers.

After those little adventures, everything came together more or less. The best thing about this recipe was being able to put the onion and the garlic in the broth without having to peel them. After simmering for over an hour, they were both removed. The next best thing was the colors. The soup itself was pretty damn tasty, which is the third best thing. I've had it three days running now.

Darien hits her stride: Wk. 3

2010-01-24T12:30:00.000-05:00

Check! on "early" to bed 4 nights this week. And check! on to the gym 4 times as well. Now all I need is to get back to that counter from last year's resolution. Hopefully John won't post a picture.

Week 2 check in -- Antonia and Jonathan

2010-01-18T11:39:00.002-05:00

Antonia -- yes! And I read David Lynch's book on meditation. Don't worry, I'm not in any danger of becoming a TM-er.

Jonathan ventured up onto the roof, and swept off the absurd amount of leaves that had accumulated.

Darien: Week 2 Check-out

2010-01-18T11:36:00.001-05:00

Oh yeah! I did it! In bed by 11:00 four weeknights out of five this week. Still not drinking coffee at work. I think I need to work back to in bed at 10:45, lights out at 11. That is my long term goal for this year.

Too much Resolution...

2010-01-16T12:35:00.003-05:00

"We watch a settling cloud of dust, revealing as it clears, a mangled mess of boy and bike. The cheering of the crowd dies slowly down, trailing into a murmur of hushed voices. In the distance a flock of seagulls cry, faint sobs creep from the younger children. In the following few moments, each an eternity long, a wave of tension constricted everyone who witnessed the tragic event. Every eye was riveted to the spot, crouched to pounce on any movement hinting of life. And as quickly as the air fogged with fear did it explode into wild rejoice as the triumphant fist rose through the dust in a victory salute. Never before has such an extreme stunt been attempted in the history of humanity. Assuredly this, folks, will go down in history books as the greatest wipe-out of our time. The leaders of tomorrow are the youth of today, my friends it is truly a dark day."

-Washington Post

Well there is one of the many post clippings, I'm sure all of you heard by now but I will be putting my original new years resolution of exercising twice a week on hold for a couple weeks. in the meanwhile I will be working on the other side of my revolution. -Gabe

Something is fishy

2010-01-13T21:48:00.000-05:00

I realized that I needed to get cracking on my resolution because I would be in Boston the next weekend. I saw a recipe for spaghetti anchovy and garlic pesto. Normally, I would stay away from anchovies, but Gabriel made a Caesar salad recently that was absolutely delicious. I never realized that one could prepare anchovies by essentially dissolving them, leaving all the taste and none of the slime. Gabriel did it by whisking the anchovies into the dressing. My recipe called for sauteing the anchovies in olive oil with garlic. Together with the pesto, it made a nice complement to the pasta.

In addition to the spaghetti, I also roasted green beans by rubbing them with oil and sprinkling with salt. I didn't time things too well and the beans remained in the oven longer than I intended. They dried out and became more like potato chips. Peter and Darien claimed they were delicious, but I would have preferred a more succulent side dish.

Overall, the dinner was good, but too salty. I found out later one can leech the salt out of anchovies by soaking them in cold water. I'll file this one away for future reference.

Week One Check Out-Darien

2010-01-10T17:01:00.000-05:00

When I sleep, I CHECK OUT! I am very proud of my progress this week. I got to bed on time 3 nights, and was close on night 4. I think that's a great start to my New Year--and I will only get better at this! As far as results ... I yawned a lot at work. What's with that? Is that due to sleeping more, or due to work? However, I didn't drink any coffee while at work. Possibly portentous.

Week 1 check in -- Antonia

2010-01-10T15:07:00.000-05:00

Success! 1/2 hour twice this week. My goal this week is to continue the 1/2 hour segments. This is much more different than the meditation I am used to with my yoga classes -- maybe 3 to 5 minutes at a stretch.

I'm using a book downloaded (for free!) from www.buddhanet.net: Mindfulness of Breathing & Four Elements Meditation, by Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw. At this stage in learning how to meditate, I'm trying to focus my awareness on the breath as it enters and leaves the body at my nostrils. That's it. Don't think about if you are breathing deeply or shallowly! Don't think about the lungs! A helpful tip:

As you pay attention to the concept of the breath in this way, and if you have practiced this meditaion in a previous life and have develped some paramis, you will easily be able to concentrate on the in-and out breath.

I must not have practiced this meditation in a previous life, because it was very difficult to not think about, oh, everything but the in-and-out breath. Grocery lists, work tasks, did I pill the cat in the morning? So I followed the advice to count my breaths. The Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw has some advice:

You should count up to at least five, and not count up to more than ten. But we encourage you to count to eight, because it reminds you of the Noble Eightfold Path, which you are trying to develop. So you should count, as you like, up to any number between five and ten, and should determine in your mind that during that time you will not let your mind drift or go somewhere else.

OK. Eight it is. The Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw will let me go on to the second stage once I can concentrate on the in-and-out of my breath for 1/2 hour.

Resolute and steadfast

2010-01-01T09:56:00.003-05:00

For several years, Darien and I have exchanged resolutions -- she picks one for me, and I pick one for her. New Wine was my documentation of the 2009 resolution.

This year, the rest of the family wanted to participate. At our Christmas dinner (which others of you know as New Year's), we discussed which resolutions we wanted everyone to try and observe in 2010. At first we were going to consult each other without the person who had to observe the resolution being present, but then decided it would be better if we just did it all in one big group.

The rules are simple. The resolution has to be something that will actually help the person, and it had to be something that was doable under ordinary circumstances. Our purpose is to see results, not to torture. For these reasons, we didn't include such difficult to achieve things as stopping smoking or losing thirty pounds. We also tried to come up with things that can be measured.

We are going to use this blog to check in periodically and let the others know how we are doing. Good luck to us all!

John: to do more cooking by preparing at least one full meal every two weeks. (And Darien must do the dishes.)

Darien: to get to bed by 11 pm on four out of five weeknights, with lights out by 11:15. I get a gold star on nights that I get to bed by 10:45, or if I achieve the awesome task of getting to bed on time five nights in a row! The result we hope for is a kinder, more patient, and less irritable Berserker.

Antonia: This year, I am going to learn how to meditate -- breath centered meditation. This will help me with my singing, and will hopefully help me to chill the fuck out (thanks, Gabe!). My goal is either levitation, or an hour a week, whichever comes first.

Jonathan: Every two weeks I resolve to learn a new skill/trick/fact necessary to becoming a person somewhat resembling a responsible Homeowner/Car Owner/ semi-adult-like person.

Peter: I will read two chapters a week from a non-school book.

Gabriel: My resolution is to exercise twice a week for the first part of the year and beef up to three days a week by the second half of the year. Other goals include eating more regularly and preparing more food at home and keeping track of what I eat. We have success for the first week: took the dog biking on Tuesday, and Thursday we both sustained 30 minutes elevated heart. w00t.

Rachel: I will be taking on a new project each month to study a different aspect of cosmetology to better help me understand my profession. My goal is to better understand both the roots and breaking new styles of the business.