Valentine's Day and After

Valentine's Day: I made a pretty, pink-sauced dish for the two and a half of us, a much-simplified and -cheapened version of a recipe I tested last fall. I used the inexpensive fish Publix is cleverly calling "basa," which is just a Vietnamese variety of catfish; as much as I'd like to support Southern catfish farmers, this stuff just looked better in the store than the supposedly local catfish (and indeed it was significantly better tasting and had a more pleasant texture than much of the catfish I've bought around here), and I've read that despite claims of the catfish industry to the contrary it's raised in very good conditions (clean, fast-running water, etc.). Fancier firm-fleshed fish like halibut or bass would be slightly better here.

Catfish with Riesling and Grapes

Serves 2 (and a half)

About 3 ounces bacon, diced
2 leeks, bottom 2 inches only, roots trimmed off
Vegetable oil
1/2 cup late-harvest (sweet) Riesling
1/2 cup white wine such as Chardonnay
2 cups red grapes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Russet potato
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup warmed milk
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
Handful of baby arugula
2 (and a half) 6-ounce pieces catfish or other fish fillet

In a heavy skillet, fry the bacon until crisp. Remove to paper towels to drain.

Cut the leeks in half lengthwise and cut into thin julienne strips. Wash well under cold water, then drain and pat dry with paper towels. Roughly chop 1/2 cup of the leeks and set aside. Heat about 1 inch oil in a heavy-bottomed 1 1/2-quart saucepan until it's shimmering but not smoking. Add a small handful of the remaining julienned leeks and fry until well browned, 45 seconds to 1 minute. Remove to paper towels to drain. Repeat with the remaining julienned leeks.

Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the oil (strain and reserve it for another use, if you like) and add the reserved chopped leeks. Sauté over medium-high heat until browned, about 3 minutes. Add the wines and 1 1/2 cups of the grapes and raise the heat to high. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until the grapes are very soft and have burst open.

Transfer the mixture to a blender and puree. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve set over the saucepan and discard the solids in the sieve. Simmer the sauce over medium-low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until reduced to 2/3 cup, skimming the foam from the surface occasionally. Set aside.

Peel, chop, and boil the potato until very tender. Pass through a potato ricer twice, then put in a medium bowl and beat in 1 tablespoon of the butter and the milk; whip until very smooth. Cover to keep warm.

Cut the remaining 1/2 cup grapes in half. Toss the grapes with the arugula, fried leeks, bacon, and a drizzle of the sauce and season the salad with salt and pepper to taste.

Rewarm the sauce and whisk in the remaining 1 tablespoon butter until smooth. Spoon some of the sauce onto each of 2 (and a half) plates and dollop some of the whipped potatoes on the side.

In a heavy skillet, heat the grapeseed oil over high heat until shimmering but not smoking. Season the fish with salt and pepper and carefully place it in the pan (skin side down, if it has skin). Cook, without turning, until well browned and crisp on the bottom, about 4 minutes, then use a thin metal spatula to turn the fish over gently. Cook until just opaque in the center. Place the fish over the sauce on the plates and top with the salad. Serve immediately.

For dessert I had a couple squares of a very good Dagoba dark milk chocolate.

And after: Well, I've decided to make some changes in the way I eat. I want to try to avoid high-refined-carbohydrate foods like white flour and sugars (except on special occasions, of course, like when there are good peaches available and we haven't had pie for a while), and I want to eat more nonstarchy vegetables and whole grains. As you might have noticed from the last few posts, I've been making more than my share of bread and cakey things lately, so it's time to shift gears. Also, it's how Mr. Chalmers prefers to eat anyway, and I think my new approach has had the added benefit of making meals and cooking in general more fun for both of us. I'm not going overboard with this, obviously, and I'm not following any specific "plan" (although I admit I actually purchased the embarassingly named South Beach Diet good carbs, good fats guide as a reference); I still drink coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and wine with supper, and I don't feel terrible if we go out for breakfast on Sunday morning and I have, for example, fresh orange juice and multigrain pancakes (yay!).

Mr. Chalmers roasted a leg of lamb in the smoker! He rubbed it with an interesting spice blend that included lots of cinnamon and nutmeg, and he stuck cloves of garlic into cuts in the meat. Not exactly low-fat, but it fit in with what I'm trying to do right now, and was absolutely delicious in small portions, with dollops of hummus and a simple cucumber-yogurt sauce on the side.

The bug is playing with the heart-shaped pancake/egg mold her grandma and grandpa sent to her for Valentine's Day. And she has a dangerously large piece of apple in her mouth . . .

And speaking of her, here she is in the cute-as-a-button smocked dress my mom made for her. She wears it with jeans and sneakers. It buttons all the way down the back.

I've been trying to make most of our suppers as special and as varied as possible so I don't miss the carbs so much these first couple weeks. Following the advice of someone posting on Chowhound, I tried cooking egg-dipped and parmesan-sprinkled eggplant in the waffle maker, for example, which was not disastrous but not worth doing again; for supper I ended up cooking the eggplant in a cast-iron skillet and topping it with a long-simmered marinara—it was good! I've also made two varieties of almost-no-carb "crackers" that Mr. Chalmers seems to like a lot. Will post recipes for those at some point. I tried making flax seed meal "pancakes" the other morning and was pretty depressed for the next several hours, so I don't think I'll be doing any more such fake foods—these suckers looked just like pancakes and smelled just like pancakes, but last time I checked pancakes weren't supposed to be slimy.

Saturday I was under the weather and needed something comforting and soothing, so for late lunch/early dinner I made a variation of Linda Dannenberg's salmon with dill gribiche from her wonderful Fresh Herb Cooking. (Her name is misspelled on Amazon.) I'd highly recommend this book, by the way. I don't even own it, but I keep calling my mom to ask her to dictate recipes I remember from when I tested them years ago; some all-time classics I've made many times: eggplant tian, the salmon dish, and there's an amazing thyme-scented chocolate cake I've been wanting to make again . . .

The salmon I made the other day had no potatoes and no spinach. I added asparagus with all the other vegetables, and I used Vidalia spring onions instead of leeks (which were a shocking $3.99 for a bunch of three at the Kroger!). I used only about 2 tablespoons butter in the broth (most of which is left behind in the skillet). For the gribiche, I omitted the parsley and cut the quantity of oil by more than half (this makes a less-thick sauce, but it doesn't need to be that thick here), and I used only half of a hard-boiled egg. The sauce recipe makes much more than you need, but it's great on sandwiches (if you're eating sandwiches) and just spooned over plain steamed or pan-seared fish. It keeps for about a week in the fridge. I'm giving the original recipe here, because it's so good, but know that it takes to adaptations very well.

Salmon with Dill Gribiche Sauce

From chef Charlene Rollins, in Talent, Oregon.

Serves 4

8 small purple potatoes, cut in half lengthwise
1 sweet red pepper, roasted and peeled, seeds removed
2 medium leeks, white and light green parts only
1 red onion
8 shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
2 tablespoons chopped dill
5 tablespoons butter
Salt
Four 6-ounce salmon fillets
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 bunches spinach, stems removed, washed
½ cup Dill Gribiche Sauce
Dill sprigs

Cook the potatoes in boiling water until just tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and set aside. Cut the roasted pepper into 1-inch squares. Cut the leeks crosswise into 1/4-inch rounds and wash thoroughly. Dice the onion. Wipe the mushrooms with a paper towel to remove any dirt, and cut the caps into quarters.

In a large sauté pan or saucepan, put the potatoes, roasted pepper, leeks onion, mushrooms, chopped dill, butter, and 1 teaspoon salt. Pour in enough water to just cover the vegetables and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to maintain a simmer; cook for 5 to 8 minutes, until the leeks and onion are soft.

Meanwhile, lightly season the salmon with salt and pepper on both sides. When the vegetables are almost done, heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat, and place the salmon in the skillet. Cook for 2 minutes, turn, and cook for 1 or 2 minutes longer, or to desired degree of doneness.

Add the spinach to the pan with the broth, and gently stir it in; cook for about 2 minutes, until the spinach is wilted and bright green.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the vegetables from the broth to 4 individual serving plates; return the broth to the heat. Place the salmon over the vegetables. Pout a little of the broth over each portion. Spoon a line of gribiche sauce across the salmon and onto some of the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper, garnish with the dill sprigs, and serve immediately.

Dill Gribiche Sauce

Makes 2 cups

1 unshelled egg
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon pickle juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 packed cup parsley leaves
1 cup dill, with stems, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup capers
2 cups canola oil
4 shallots
3 medium-sized crunchy dill pickles
2 hard-boiled eggs, cooled and peeled

Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Gently place the egg in the boiling water, cover, and remove from the heat. Let stand for 6 minutes, then remove the egg and crack it into the bowl of a food processor. Add the vinegar, pickle juice, and salt; process until smooth. Add the parsley and dill and proces. Add the capers; then, with the processor running, gradually add the oil in a thin stream, until the mixture is thick but still pourable. If it’s too thick, stir in a dash of pickle juice. Transfer the sauce to a sealable plastic container.

Finely mince the shallots, and dice the pickles and hard-boiled eggs; stir them into the sauce and season to taste with pickle juice or vinegar. The gribiche will keep for a week or two in the refrigerator.

One of my favorite simple meals so far has been that old standby of low-carb early adopters (that is, pre-Dreamfields): zucchini "linguine." I know, I know, it's not like pasta at all, but it is a tasty and satisfying vehicle for one of my favorite pasta sauces, Patricia Wells's meat and celery sauce. I made a big batch of the sauce, and when lunchtime rolls around all I have to do is slice a zucchini on the mandoline (I have an Oxo one that works quite well for this purpose), throw it in a sauté pan, spoon on some of the sauce straight from the fridge, sprinkle with a little water and salt and pepper, and cook until everything is heated through and the zucchini is just tender. It all takes about seven minutes. The bug loves it (and sometimes I cook some regular macaroni for her too).

It looks a little grim in this picture, but in real life it's nice and bright.

I don't know why the fonts and line spacing in my posts are so screwy, and nothing seems to work to fix them. Sorry about the lack of readability above.

Fun Mail

This afternoon an exciting package arrived from a new friend and correspondant—so exciting that I forgot to take a picture of it right away, in all its bubbly, spongy, extruding-from-the-Ziploc glory. Above is a sourdough starter, which smells absolutely wonderful by the way, just after I mixed in flour and water to refresh it. According to my extremely generous benefactor, it probably dates back to Sonoma County around the end of the eighteenth century. Needless to say, I'm very much looking forward to trying it.

Too Much Baking

This may be the last of my baking for a few days. I've done far too much of it lately, I think because around this time of year I get completely sick of winter foods and it's too early for spring and summer foods. What I wouldn't give right now for a good tomato sandwich with mayonnaise, salt and pepper, a basil leaf, and a couple slices of this bread:

Sourdough in the foreground, somewhat overbaked multigrain with walnuts in the back.

I've been learning so much about flour and yeast, though, that I do want to keep going while I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.

We Have a Winner

After a minor setback last night, in which my too-wet dough stuck so disastrously to my very well floured cloths that the cloths had to be discarded, this morning I baked a really good loaf of sourdough. This one had no leaven other than the starter, which when I mixed up the dough yesterday morning was at the point where it was doubling in volume in a couple hours.

I used this LA Times recipe, sort of. My starter is only part whole wheat (I ran out of whole wheat flour a while ago and started using all-purpose and bread flour—no big deal), and I used a bit less whole wheat flour in the dough itself: 9 ounces starter (which was quite a bit more than 1 cup), 5 ounces whole wheat flour, about 10 ounces bread flour (to which I later added maybe another ounce due to the aforementioned sticking problem), 12 ounces water, 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt.

I followed all the folding and shaping steps, but because my dough was so wet to begin with I had to gently fold and knead it again last night instead of baking it. I stuck it in the fridge overnight, let it rise at room temperature for a few hours this morning, then shaped it into boules and put them in flour-cloth-lined bowls covered with plastic (above) to rise for another hour or so.

Turned a boule out onto parchment on a peel, then onto a stone in a 450-degree oven with lots of steam (ice in the bottom of the oven, plus misting the oven walls in the first few minutes of baking). I did not turn down the oven temperature as it says to do in the recipe.

Here's what I got: a very holey, moist, chewy crumb; a nice chewy crust (not very crisp, though); and, most important, a wonderfully complex flavor. It's good and salty, quite sour but not in as assertive a way as my last sourdough attempt. Basically it's just fantastic bread, and I'm very happy with it. Next time I make sourdough the process will be less problematic, I think, but I will do the overnight rise in the fridge again, as I think that helped the flavor develop and mature considerably.

On the muffin front, I made some of the Everyday Food quinoa muffins Heidi mentioned, but I baked them in mini-muffin pans and used only 2 tablespoons sugar instead of the 3/4 cup called for, and chopped frozen cherries instead of raisins. They are, well, not sweet, and the low sugar content meant they didn't brown very well. (I don't know about the picture on the Martha Stewart recipe page, by the way. Where's the quinoa in those muffins?)

The bug taste-tested them, and when I saw that she'd picked the cherries out and left the crumbled half-chewed remains of the quinoa part on the counter I decided to try another recipe. Daycare workers don't need that kind of mess at a Valentine's Day party, I figured; they'd probably appreciate just a little more sugar high and a little less mess.

So I adapted a blueberry muffin recipe my mom sent me from her stash. She says that in the old days muffins weren't supposed to be sweet at all because they were served with supper, and sure enough her old recipes called for only 2 tablespoons sugar (and in once case none at all!) per 2 cups or 1 1/2 cups flour. I split the difference, and the results were so popular I had to hide them from little hands.

Semi-Old-Fashioned Raspberry Muffins

Makes about 20 mini muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
3/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup frozen raspberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter and flour mini muffin tins.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In a small bowl, whisk together the butter, milk, egg, and vanilla. Gently stir the wet mixture into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until the dry ingredients are almost all moistened; do not overmix or the muffins will be tough. Gently fold in the raspberries. (You can toss the raspberries with a little flour before folding them in if you don't want the color to bleed too much. I wanted the pink to spread, as these are Valentine's Day muffins.)

Fill the muffin cups to the top and bake in the center of the oven for about 15 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove the muffins to wire racks to cool.

Multigrain Extravaganza

The Chalmerses have been hunkered down this weekend as the bug has been down with a nasty cold. We helped her make valentines for her "classmates" at daycare (they sent home a list of names for us, and convinced me to sign up to bring low-sugar muffins on Thursday), and then for some reason Mr. Chalmers started using the construction paper to make a small and fantastical city. It looked like fun, so I made a couple buildings too.

I baked a couple loaves of bread based on Beranbaum's Tyrolean ten-grain torpedo, with, I think, great success. I'm not usually a fan of multigrain-type breads, but this one was much better than others I've had or made because the flour is just 100% regular bread flour, with the whole (-ish) grains added. No whole wheat flour, in other words, to weigh it down. It was springy and chewy and light, even with all the chunky additions.

I used rinsed quinoa and speckle grits, rolled and steel-cut oats, wheat germ, flax seeds, nuts (sunflower seeds in one loaf and chopped toasted walnuts in the other), toasted pepitos, and I think some white cornmeal—all soaked overnight in hot water to just cover. Meanwhile, the sponge went in the fridge overnight. Everything was mixed together with the salt (in the second loaf I increased the salt from 1 1/4 teaspoons to 2 teaspoons) in the morning to make a sticky dough; two rises, shaped into a batard (this was the first time I've done a batard following good illustrations, and the picture below doesn't do it justice!), proofed for an hour, then sprinkled with rye flour, slashed, and baked on a stone with lots of steam at the beginning.

Something about the perspective makes this photo look odd. The slashes were a little off, but the shape itself was more uniform and pretty than it appears here.

The crumb wasn't exceptionally holey, but it was surprisingly light, and the crust was nice and crisp-chewy.

My whole wheat (mostly; I ran out of whole wheat and switched to all-purpose) sourdough starter, in other news, is almost ready to use. It isn't quadrupling in volume yet, but it's much more active in the last day or so than any starter I've made before.

When Life Hands You Pineapple Juice

I decided to go ahead and try Peter Reinhart et al.'s "pineapple solution," outlined in the L.A. Times recently. I'm now in the late feeding and refreshing stage, and it's a good thing, because I've gotten to the point where I feel like I'm using an awful lot of flour for the amount of bread coming out of the oven (that is, zero bread as yet). So far I don't think there's been much difference between the starter begun with juice and the one begun with water; we'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, what to do with the extra pineapple juice (it only came in six-can packs!). Make a ridiculous tropical drink, of course.

This one had white rum, Grand Marnier (also left over from something else; I can't remember what), lime juice, and pineapple juice. It would've been better without the pineapple juice, actually.

Here's what my countertop looked like this morning:

Clearly I need to step away from the Stretch-Tite. Whole wheat starter in front; soaking grains (quinoa, oats, flax, cornmeal) in the middle; not sure about the metal bowl in back; regular rye-white starter at right. That's Julia Child underneath the cutting board (so that's where it went), and BBA in the foreground. The banana is unrelated.

Our Polling Place

It was the bug's first national election. We all walked across the railroad tracks to the volunteer fire department building at 7 a.m., where there was already one woman waiting to vote.

Redneck Wine Pairing

Dellatorri Chianti, 2005 ($8.88 at Kroger this week, with a Plus card). Everyone knows ants on a log just cries out for Sauv Blanc, but I'm a rebel like that. And besides, the tannins really cut through the cream cheese in the ham roll-ups.

Sometimes I make weird suppers like this (chicken salad and sliced apples not pictured). I don't know why, but they make me happy.

Cheating at Sourdough

I've yet to get a sourdough culture going that is strong enough to rise a regular bread dough, so in the loaves I've made in the last week or so I've added 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast to the dough (per 4 1/2 and in one case about 7 cups flour) in the middle of the process—at about day two of three.

These loaves are mostly white flour, with 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour for flavor. The bug was impatient, so I cut into the funny-looking one before it had cooled, and it got a little gummy.

In the Reinhart book, many of the recipes have you mixing the flour and salt together and adding them to the wetter ingredients (a starter or barm plus water, for example). I've found that technique problematic, because often it results in a stiffer dough than I think is right—and adding more water at the end is extremely annoying and difficult. In future, I'll go back to the usual way of adding the salt with the first cup or so of flour, and adding more flour gradually until it just feels right to me.

The ugly loaves in front, variations on Reinhart's version of Poilâne bread, are 100% whole wheat (and they sure tasted like it). Good and sour, but very heavy and dense. I forgot about the baguettes in the oven, and they burnt a bit.

The whole wheat loaf crumb.

The baguette's crumb. This loaf was baked on a sheet pan because I have only one French bread pan (I was making four loaves at a time)—hence the flat bottom. Very chewy and sour, but I prefer the lighter texture of my normal, nonsourdough French loaf.

The baguettes made excellent bread crumbs, incidentally, which I put on top of the most ridiculously complicated tuna noodle casserole ever. Look at this recipe! It's a tuna noodle casserole, for crying out loud! Yes, it was good, and maybe slightly more healthful than the canned-soup variety, but really not worth the kitchen mess and effort.

This is the cinnamon crumb nut apple surprise quickbread from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. Not a bread bread, but I was craving a slice of it to go with my afternoon Earl Grey. I took the remaining slices to Mr. Chalmers's office kitchen.

The apples are the surprise part, I guess.

I think my breads were better before I started reading the Beranbaum and Reinhart books and trying to learn how to make better bread, but I think I'll get to a point where the extra knowledge starts to pay off. A few factors might delay this: I'm no good at following directions, I'm forgetful, and I'm no good at keeping track of what I've done for future reference.

Good Food in Georgia

The Chalmerses and a friend made the about-three-hour drive to Marietta yesterday to have lunch at Tasty China (585 Franklin Rd. SE, Marietta, 770-419-9849—though they've never answered the phone when I've called), the Sichuan restaurant that's been much discussed on the South board on Chowhound for the last year and a half or so. The bug slept all the way there, and was brilliantly behaved throughout our extended meal, thoroughly charming the servers and trying lots of different foods.

We ordered more food than could fit on our table, and they had to take plates away and pack up to-go containers as we were eating. A singularly unhelpful and vague report on our meal is here, on Chowhound; scroll up for much more detailed descriptions of dishes by people who know what they're talking about. Locals with any interest in Chinese food should try to get over there. It's worth the drive, says Mr. Chalmers, who actually did the drive and who isn't normally a fan of Chinese. (He was won over by, among other things, the interesting use of cumin in several of the dishes.)

Afterwards we checked out the international grocery in the same strip shopping center (no purchases, but they do carry Bulgarian feta, I was happy to see: look for the green-and-white-striped tins in the refrigerated case). If you're at Tasty China for dinner on a weekend, you might go to one of the two Latino dance clubs next door afterwards—just a suggestion. Since we were there on a Sunday afternoon and were packing a toddler, we instead went into downtown Marietta and had coffee at a surprisingly attractive and well-patronized coffee house just off the square (the name of it escapes me, but it's opposite a blue-and-white-facaded Greek restaurant). It was a very cold but very good Sunday afternoon.

Progress Reports

Yesterday afternoon I noticed five bubbles in my first "real" sourdough starter made with only flour and water, which means I've captured some wild yeast from either the flour or the sweet Madison County air. You might be able to pick them out:

There may be sourdough bread in our near future, who knows? I'm not entirely sure what comes next. If only for my own future reference, here's what I did. This starts out close to BBA, but then veers off on day 4 as I worry it's not working (and as I reach my "viewing limit").

Possible sourdough starter

Day 1: Combine 1 cup whole organic rye flour and 3/4 cup lukewarm water; press the mixture (it was like a paste) into the bottom of a tall plastic container. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

Day 2: Scrape the mixture into a bowl and mix in 1 cup King Arthur unbleached bread flour and 1/2 cup lukewarm water; press the dough (now a stiff ball) back into the container. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

Day 3: Discard half of the dough ball. To the remaining, add 1 cup bread flour and 1/2 cup lukewarm water; press into the container. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

Day 4: Add 1/2 cup bread flour and 1/2 cup lukewarm water directly to the container and mix it in with a rubber spatula. (It's runnier now, and easier to mix.) Put a piece of tape on the outside of the container to mark the level of the mixture. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

It's about 5 a.m. right now on day 5, the stuff has risen about 3/4 inch above the tape, and that's all I know about this sourdough thing for now.

Last night I made my first attempt at kung pao chicken. I should say that I don't cook a lot of Chinese food, at least not Americanized Chinese (although once at about 3 a.m. after a big night out with my now husband I made us my mom's moo goo gai pan, and I do have a few Chinese Chinese dishes in my regular rotation—ugh, "rotation": this is why I want to try more new foods). I don't know much about stir-frying, and I don't own a wok. So I was pretty much at the mercy of actual recipes this time. I couldn't find any that seemed just like West Side Cottage II's: the "authentic"-looking ones didn't have the vegetables (I like it with crisp carrots, celery, and water chestnuts), and the ones that had the vegetables seemed lame on the sauce front. In the end, I kind of winged it, and the results were wonderful. I won't post a recipe yet, because what I came up with was close to what I wanted but not quite right (the marinade and sauce were based on Fuchsia Dunlop's gong bao ji ding). I know that the elements of most takeout versions are fried in tons of oil, and of course I didn't do that—the only real problem was that the sauce was too sweet and had too much soy flavor. I think I can fix the latter by using Chinese light soy sauce next time.

I'm all out of black vinegar or I'd make a second attempt right now and post a recipe. Soon, folks.

Sorry for the crappy lighting. It looked better than this.

Leftovers

This week I've found myself trying to use up ten pounds of jagerwurst we stuffed and smoked over the weekend. We gave away as much as we could without being obnoxious sausage-pushers, and I managed to fit a half dozen links or so in the (now) completely full freezer. It can be eaten out of hand, perhaps on a plate with crackers and cheese and pickles, but I can handle only a few slices at a time. Here's what I made last night; it was really good with French bread and cheap red wine on a wintry-mix sort of evening.

White beans with kale and jagerwurst
Serves 4.

2 cups dried white beans, rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 sprig rosemary
Chicken stock
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 large white onion, diced
About 1 pound kale, trimmed and chopped (I used blanched kale that I'd frozen a few months ago)
About 3/4 pound jagerwurst or other smoked pork sausage, sliced 1/2 inch thick
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a pot, cover the beans with water by 2 inches and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat and let soak for 1 hour. Drain and rinse the beans and return them to the pot. Add the bay leaf, rosemary sprig, and stock to cover the beans by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer and cook until the beans are just tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours, adding more stock or water to keep the beans just covered. Remove and discard the bay leaf and rosemary.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat and add the onion. Sauté until the onion is soft and just starting to brown. Remove from the heat. When the beans are almost done, add the onion to the pot and stir in the kale.

Return the pan to medium heat and add the sausage. Cook until well browned on one side, then add the sausage to the pot and simmer until the kale is tender and the beans are soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste and spoon into shallow soup bowls.

List in Progress

It's been a hell of a year so far, but I'm still here, still thinking crazy thoughts about food.

I'm not one for lists—or, rather, for following lists; I love making them!—but here are a few things I'd like to learn how to do well this year (or whenever):

1. Sourdough bread. I've ordered The Bread Baker's Apprentice, which should arrive next week. But I was too excited, and went ahead and began a starter this morning, following the BBA page I could read in Google Books. Apparently, though, I've reached my "viewing limit," which means I only know what to do through day three. Can anybody tell me what is on pages 230ff?
2. Kung pao chicken like they have at West Side Cottage II, which was our local delivery/takeout Chinese in New York. All the elements are perfectly cooked, and the sauce is dark and spicy. Have I mentioned here that in Gainesville, Florida, where we lived for a year between New York and Georgia, the kung pao chicken had zucchini in it? I've still never forgiven Gainesville for that.
3. Summer sausage. I love even mediocre summer sausage, and I think it'd be fun to make my own.
4. Bagels, and again I mean New York bagels, good ones, the kind you just cannot get anywhere near Athens. I have a good start: my first attempt, a couple weeks ago, worked really well. I added vital wheat gluten to high-gluten flour, and used barley malt syrup in the (very stiff) dough and the poaching water. Next time there will be pictures, because next time they'll look more like bagels and less like softballs.
5. Lox. Which means building that smokehouse, and also: learning how to cut a straight line with my Skilsaw. Can one make cream cheese at home?
6. Kouign amann. I can't pronounce it and I've never eaten it, but it sure sounds like something I'd like. My mom's made it a few times and has given me some tips to augment this recipe.
7. Gnocchi, light and fluffy, now that I have a potato ricer.
8. Iranian cheese, the stuff that's like Bulgarian feta, which I haven't come across outside New York. It has the consistency and saltiness of feta, but is very, very sour—not to everyone's taste, but I think it's wonderful. The bug was found yesterday sitting in a corner of the kitchen, on top of a heating register, with a fistful of Bulgarian feta we'd brought back from the city. She likes it too.
9. Beef with long hot peppers. This will be easy. I've given up on my pork with sour long beans dish from Grand Sichuan International: the Ninth Avenue restaurant is no longer extant, I learned, which I think is a sign that I should just let it go.
10. Lovage. This year I will try harder to grow it, and if the seeds don't sprout, as happened last year, I'll look harder for potted lovage. My mom planted some for me in my yard this fall, but the drought might have killed it off.

Also, I want to try to use more unfamiliar ingredients—unfamiliar to me, anyway—in everyday cooking. Once recently I bought a turnip, and I don't think I'd ever eaten one before, but it was a revelation. I love turnips! (I sautéed thin slices in duck fat. I love duck fat!) I'm looking for more of that this year.

And now for some random pictures that might represent how the holidays went for the Chalmerses.

There was a cookie-baking day with Athens friends.

There was a long drive to New York, and reading to Cooper.

There was a trip to drizzly Mount Vernon, New York, for pizza at Johnny's (30 W. Lincoln Ave., near Gramatan Ave.)—mentioned on Jeff Varasano's pizza page.

It was probably the bug's best restaurant outing ever. She was fascinated, as were we, by the place and the people there (all of them men: she probably appreciated the low, deep hum of the conversations?), and she seemed to like the pizza, too. It was very good: thin, charred, bubbly, flavorful crust, simple sauce, not too much cheese, that's it.

There was the bug's first time on a beach, near Rye Playland: subfreezing temperatures and below-zero windchill.

There were two nights in Atlantic City, oddly.

There was coming home and cozying up in the big chair.

Pralines

I never thought there would come a time when I could write a blog post with the title "Pralines," but here it is. A couple-few years ago, I promised Mr. Chalmers I'd never again attempt to make pralines due to the terrible black cloud that descended and hovered over the household during my third, fourth, fifth, and sixth complete failures in the space of about a week and a half. I fully intended to keep my promise, but something about my circumstances this year emboldened me.

At the end of a day of high-volume cookie baking this weekend with friends, one of them stuck her ex-boyfriend's praline recipe on the wall above the stove and proceeded to show me how it's done. The recipe was from Southern Living, 1959. First of all, I love the ingredients: sugar, baking soda, light cream, butter, and pecans—there's no corn syrup crutch (so many praline recipes call for a whole cup of the stuff, which makes the praline mixture—note I did not say pralines, because what I've made in the past would not be recognized as such anywhere south of I-60—it makes it taste not so much like sugar as like corn syrup). Second, the recipe contained one vital piece of information other recipes I've tried did not: if the damn candy mixture starts to harden before you've hurriedly gotten it all scooped out of the pot, just add a tablespoon of hot water and keep going. Genius! Third, and most important, the pralines taste wonderful and have a creamy, smooth, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

After seeing it done on Saturday I decided to try it all by myself on Sunday. Success:

Pralines
From Southern Living, via my friend Regan

2 cups sugar
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup light cream or evaporated milk
1½ tablespoons butter
2 cups pecan halves

1. Get everything ready in advance: Put a cup of cold water in the freezer for the cold water tests, lay out a big sheet of waxed paper or parchment right next to the stovetop, measure the butter and pecans and have them next to the stove.
2. Combine the sugar and soda in a deep 3-quart saucepan [4-quart worked fine]. Mix well with a wooden spoon, then add the cream. Stir carefully to keep the sugar crystals in the bottom part of the pan [Not sure what this means]. All the crystals should be dissolved before the mixture boils—this helps make it smooth and creamy.
3. Bring to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally [I'd say frequently] to prevent scorching [I stirred up little browned bits from the bottom and sides, and was worried, but it all evened out toward the end]. When the mixture starts to boil, it bubbles high in the pan, so reduce the heat and continue stirring to keep it from boiling over. Cook to about 234 degrees F., until candy forms a soft ball when tested in cold water [I pulled my pot off the heat at 230 or even a bit lower, trusting the color and the soft ball test more than the thermometer]. Test several times; read the thermometer while candy boils, but remove the pan from the heat during the water test so it won’t overcook.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and immediately stir in the butter. Measure accurately—too much butter may keep the pralines from firming up. Add the pecans and beat until thick enough to drop from a spoon, 2 to 3 minutes [I beat for less time; don't let it thicken too much; it'll thicken as it drops from the spoon]. Candy thickens rapidly with beating.
5. Drop candies onto waxed paper. Add 1 tablespoon hot water if necessary to keep the candy at the right stage for dropping from the spoon.

Pandoro + Danish = Babka

Here's my version (only a little simplified) of my mom's version of Mario Batali's pandoro and Craig Claiborne's danish. (For all the Craig Claiborne fans out there, have you seen his newly reissued book of Southern recipes? Did you know he was from Mississippi? I did not.)


Cheese Babka

For the yeast mixture:
1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast (I used instant)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

For phase 1:
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup room temperature water

For phase 2:
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 large egg yolks
1 large egg
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup room-temperature water
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup golden raisins (I used black)

For the cheese filling:
1 cup cottage cheese
1 large egg
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon butter
Zest of 1/2 lemon

For the topping (optional):
1 large egg, beaten together with 1 teaspoon water
Sugar

Make the yeast mixture: In a small bowl, combine the water, yeast, sugar, egg yolk, and flour. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

Phase 1: In a medium bowl, beat together all the ingredients. Add the yeast mixture and mix well. Gradually stir in the flour to form a sticky dough. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes, or use the dough hook attachment on an electric mixer (which I don't have; use those arms!). The dough should remain somewhat tacky, unlike bread dough.

Butter a large bowl and add the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours.

Phase 2: In a medium bowl, beat together the flour, egg yolks, egg, sugar, salt, water, and lemon zest.

Punch down the dough from phase 1 above and pour in the egg mixture, stirring and cutting slowly to break up the dough. The texture of this mixture will appear strange, but will smooth out after the addition of the flour. Gradually add the flour and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Knead for an additional 10 minutes. Place in a buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 2 hours. Punch down the dough and knead in the raisins.

Make the cheese filling: In a food processor, process the cottage cheese until very smooth, then add the egg, sugar, butter, and lemon zest and process to combine.

Shape and bake the babkas: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter and flour 2 large coffee cans (I used cans that were 6 3/4 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter, but you can get creative here and use 3 smaller cans, or tall cake pans, or whatever; just adjust the baking time and watch them closely).

Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, pat out half of the dough into a rough rectangle about 6 by 12 inches. Spoon half of the filling over the rectangle and do your best to roll it up and get it into a coffee can. It may look as messy as this:

But don't worry. Do the other half of the dough and filling. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes. Bake for 35 minutes, until nicely browned on top, then brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Return to the oven for 5 minutes. Let cool on wire racks for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges with a thin knife and remove from the cans. Let cool completely, then slice one and give one away.

Sleepy Cozy

One of my new favorite things to do with the bug is to take her over to Watson Mill Bridge State Park, which is about three miles from our house, to go for long morning walks in the woods. The last time we went, it was before naptime and I thought the one-and-a-half-mile loop would make her nice and sleepy. I didn't expect it to put her to sleep half a mile in—I carried her the rest of the way. Before I lost the use of my arms I took some pictures along the trail.

In the evenings now that it's cold, I've been warming up the bug's bedtime milk with a pinch of cinnamon, a tiny bit of nutmeg, and one small drop of honey. She breaks out into a huge smile after every gulp, but it's always too dark to take a clear picture unless she's absorbed in her cup.

It's drizzly and chilly this morning (okay, not that chilly—45.2 degrees), but I might go ahead and bundle us up and go out. It's either that or hibernate.

Better Late

The Chalmerses set out Wednesday morning for Pittsburgh, for no other reason than we've been wanting to see it together—I'm interested in Rust Belt ruins, and Mr. Chalmers reminded us that Pittsburgh was the setting for Wonder Boys, which was not so good but which showed the city in a way that was attractive to both of us.

The bug was wonderful and sweet in the car, reading her books and hugging her animals, in particular Grandma Bear:

We stopped in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, for a light lunch outdoors (pizza margherita), and walked around marveling at the tall buildings and feeling like country come to town. The bug had a ball peeking through holes in various public statues and structures. It was windy, but not too cold.

By evening we'd reached Wytheville, Virginia, a small town in the far southwest corner of the state, where Interstates 77 and 81 intersect. It's been the setting for many a fantasy of the Chalmerses ever since Mr. Chalmers passed through it on a cross-country trip many years ago; this was my first time there. It's hard to imagine that it could have exceeded my expectations, but it did: it truly is the most beautiful small town I've ever seen. Here's the main drag (the moon is in the upper right corner):

While strolling down the sidewalk looking in shop windows (many of the the shops were open for business, amazingly), we saw: a man asleep at his desk in what I think was an insurance company, a huge pencil advertising a stationery store, people (oh, let's call them neighbors) putting up holiday lights on the streetlamps, and an almost full moon (the bug is very excited about the moon these short days). The small but perfect public park was an idyllic glade of bright-yellow-leafed trees lining a babbling brook with wooden footbridges. We had a tough time convincing the bug to come down off the big rustic outdoor stage (think Shakespeare in the Park). We walked through a pretty neighborhood, and were passing a big old Victorian house with a crazily overgrown wooded yard as people were just arriving—Thanksgiving guests. It was lovely.

We had supper at a place on the main street called Troy's, which was a New York–themed Philly cheesesteak joint:

My cheesesteak was excellent, which is good because Troy's was about the closest we got to eating in the North on this trip.

Coming down a mountain into West Virginia that evening, on a curvy, fast highway, we had an honest-to-god blowout. Within twenty seconds our tire was completely gone. Mr. Chalmers very carefully pulled over right next to the guardrail beside a sheer dropoff. With trucks and holiday traffic whipping past us, we got the car jacked up, but we couldn't get one of the lug nuts off—it just kept spinning frustratingly. The bug was asleep. Mr. Chalmers started walking back up the mountain, where we'd passed an exit about a mile back. It was cold and windy. About an hour later, a courtesy patrol truck stopped, and the man used special tools to get the tire off and the spare on, then he went to look for Mr. Chalmers, because he said there was absolutely nothing off exit 1. Half an hour later he came back—without my husband. The courtesy guy called up to the mountain tunnel people—nobody had seen him. He called the state troopers—no luck, but they'd go out looking for them when they could spare a car (apparently there was a big domestic disturbance in the next town, ten miles down the road). Just then a truck pulled up with Mr. Chalmers in it. He'd walked (and run) eight miles, to the nearest business, a liquor store, and gotten a ride back.

By that time, the hazards had run down the car battery, so we had to jump start it with the courtesy truck. It was after 10 when we got to a motel with an available room and started trying to put the bug to bed. We were all exhausted. The bug, however, would not sleep. She was delirious with excitement about being in a new place, and insisted on exploring the new place until 3:30. So we slept off and on from then until she woke up for good at 7:30. It was actually a relief to be out of the bed with that little kicker—if she wasn't kicking us in the throat we were getting it in the face.

In better spirits now with a few hours of sleep under our belt, we drove slowly to the Wal-Mart and got a new tire put on—we were all set by 8:30 in the morning. Thanksgiving morning. Pittsburgh would've been a possibility if the specter of at least two more sleepless nights in a hotel room weren't looming over us. So we drove home. It was a pretty drive, and thankfully uneventful. The bug was adorable, of course, and perfectly sweet. She's a good road-tripper but a very bad co-sleeper.

It's Saturday now. The first thing I heard this morning when I woke up was Mr. Chalmers and the bug outside cleaning the smoker getting it ready for a turkey breast he'd put in a brine yesterday afternoon. We had just the right size pot:

We've been making food since yesterday, eating each dish as it's ready and not worrying about Thanksgiving traditions or getting everything on the table all at once. (Mr. Chalmers told me we can do anything I want for Thanksgiving each year as long as he gets to smoke turkey.) So I made Polish food.

First up, pierogies. I'd never made them before, so I pretty much followed this recipe, which worked well, though the dough was a little doughy—roll it thinner than 1/8 inch. For the filling, I boiled 2 1/2 pounds of potatoes (mixed varieties), had Mr. Chalmers rice them (even though I've been boxing, his arms are still stronger), then beat in 1 minced sautéed onion, 4 ounces grated Cheddar cheese, some chopped parsley from the yard, and salt and pepper.

I'm a fried pierogi type, as you might've guessed. I boiled them till they floated, drained them well (till they were a bit dry), then fried in butter with onion.

The bug had her own little bowl. She especially liked the applesauce her grandma from Washington made for her.

Ever since I saw a picture of a plastic to-go container of cabbage rolls (in my Pittsburgh research online), I'd been craving them.

Thanksgiving cabbage rolls (mostly from Joy of Cooking): Cut out the core of a green or Savoy cabbage and put it in a large pot of boiling salted water for 5 minutes or so. Meanwhile, mix together 1 pound ground turkey, 1 large egg, 1 grated carrot, 1 diced onion, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup raw white rice, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Pull a leaf off the cabbage and put the head back in the boiling water. Slice the back of the center rib off to make the leaf flexible. Set the leaf on the counter concave side up and put a 1-inch-diameter line of the turkey mixture at the core end. Roll it up like an eggroll, somewhat loosely (the rice will expand). Repeat with the remaining filling.

Chop 1 cup of the remaining cabbage. Heat some olive oil in a large sauté pan and add the cabbage and 1 diced onion. Cook until lightly browned, then add 1/2 cup wine (I used red; it was open) and cook until it's evaporated. Add 1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in puree and break up the tomatoes a bit. Add some water, about 1/4 cup brown sugar, some raisins, 1/2 teaspoon citric acid (I couldn't find any, so I used Fruit-Fresh, which contains ascorbic and citric acids, plus about a tablespoon of sherry vinegar—?), about 6 ginger snaps, and salt and pepper to taste. Arrange the cabbage rolls, seam side down, in the sauce, cover the pan, and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Serve with sour cream or crème fraîche.

Somewhere in there we also had sausages. Oh, and I made a plain old apple pie for dessert.

Today, of course, will be turkey, and I also want to make my mom's cheese babka, which is sort of a mash-up of a Mario Batali pandoro and a Craig Claiborne cheese danish. Mr. Chalmers kindly consented to using preground coffee for the forseeable future so that I'd have two big cans to bake the babkas in. They've been emptied and washed, so stay tuned.