Throwing Food

Our baby is just about 8 months old now and loves to feed herself. (I think we may need to check her into a Cheerios rehab center soon.) One problem she has is trying to pick up small pieces of slippery, wet fruit or veggie, like pears, bananas, avocado, carrots, etc.--she can't get a good enough grip on them to get them off of the high chair tray. We've found that if we toss the food pieces in wheat germ to coat them, she can pick them up without a problem. Even better, she gets some additional nutrition from the wheat germ. I suppose you could also use something like the dried baby cereal mix or even crushed up Cheerios, though we probably should feed the addition more than we already are. Be ready, though, for a nice mess to clean up afterwards, since wheat germ and banana slime seem to create a nice glue that, for our baby at least, ends up coating her face.

A sunny holiday weekend cries out for a cold, thick smoothie. Here's a simple one that's sure to please.

Mixed Berry Smoothie

Ingredients

• 2 cups of frozen mixed berries
• 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
• 1 sliced banana
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 6oz cup of vanilla yogurt

Put all of the ingredients into a blender. Blend until thick and smooth.

I'm taking a trip to Sweden soon. In honor of that (and by request of Jana), here's a recipe for some homemade aquavit. I first saw this made on PBS on New Scandinavian Cooking, and then again in that show's Norwegian host Andrea Viestad's book, Kitchen of Light. It's an aquired taste, at least for an American, but I like it.

Aquavit

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons of caraway seeds
• 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
• 2 teaspoons of dill seeds
• 2 star anise
• 1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
• 1 whole clove
• 1 1-inch cinnamon stick (optional)
• 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds (optional)
• 1 1-liter bottle of vodka

Add the spices to the vodka bottle and cover tightly. Let it stand for 2 or 3 weeks, depending on how strong you want it to be. Shake the bottle occasionally. Once it's reached the desired flavor, strain it and return to the bottle.

I was looking around on Foodry today and was amused by some of the restaurant names from around the country. Here are a few of them:

Sacks Art Of Sandwicherie - Phoenix, AZ
Ignoring the obvious hilarity of "Sacks", "Sandiwicherie" is just a cool word.

Tibetan Yak Restaurant - Queens, NY
Yak. Just saying it makes me snicker. Plus the thought of one in the middle of Queens...

Souper Bowl - Anchorage, AK
Ok, not so funny. But give them a break -- they're in Alaska.

Big Tomato - Pembroke Pines, FL
Is it a fruit or a vegetable? It's big, whatever it is.

Dot & Etta's Shrimp Hut - Detroit, MI
Shrimp must be popular in Detroit -- Dot and Etta have a couple of locations.

Sitting Duck - Bigfork, MT
Just don't wear your elk antlers to dinner.

Squealer's - Meridian, MS
Onomatopoeia.

Mooner's Bar & Lounge - Mitchell, SD
Hehe. He said Mooner. After dinner, you can stop at the Corn Palace.

Tailgators - Perryton, TX
I hear gator tail tastes like chicken.

The Meating Place - Perryton, TX
Another one from Perryton! They're a creative bunch. I'm not sure I want to know what "meating" is, though.

Fingers, Wings & Other Things - Philadelphia, PA
Don't ask what the Other Things are.

A Wok on the Beach - Gulf Shores, AL
Wok is a word made for punning. This is a particularly good one.

Wok Right Inn - South Bend, IN
Not that funny, but this one gets two puns for the price of one.

Sar's Oriental Cuisine - Tacoma, WA
Not that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is funny, but I wonder if they had a decline in business a couple of years ago.

I'm sure there are some even better ones out there. Let me know about them! (And if you've actually have eaten there, submit a review.)

Our backyard apple tree is dropping apples like crazy, much faster than I can eat them by hand. Too many of them are already being wasted, sitting on the ground for days, so I decided to do something about it: make applesauce. Here's what I did, based on a recipe at Simply Recipes.

Applesauce

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds of a good cooking apple
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 large pinch of salt
• 1 cup of water

Peel, core, and quarter the apples. Put them in a pot large enough to hold them with some extra room. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes. Remove from heat and mash with potato masher or, for a smoother applesauce, use a food processor. Allow to cool a bit and either serve immediately warm or refrigerate or freeze.

With the gracious help of Amazon.com, I've set up the Throwing Food Store, featuring great cookbooks, kitchen gadgets, and food that I mention on this site. Check it out if you have a second. :)

Throwing Food Store

In a totally offtopic comment on Slashdot, an anonymous poster provided this recipe. It sounded pretty good, so maybe I'll give it a try.

Skirt Steak Tacos with Fresh Lime Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 pound skirt steak, cut into 4 pieces
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle chile powder, divided
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, divided
• 6 green onions
• 2 ears of corn, husked
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lime peel
• 8 5- to 6-inch corn tortillas

Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Sprinkle skirt steak on both sides with salt and 1 1/4 teaspoons chile powder. Whisk 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon lime juice in 11x7-inch glass dish. Add meat and turn to coat; place in single layer. Marinate 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, brush green onions and corn with 1 tablespoon oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill vegetables until slightly charred, turning occasionally, about 2 minutes for green onions and 7 minutes for corn. Working over bowl, cut corn from cob directly into bowl. Coarsely chop green onions and add to corn. Stir in cilantro, lime peel, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon chile powder, 1/2 tablespoon oil, and 1 tablespoon lime juice. Season relish to taste with salt and pepper.

Grill skirt steak to desired doneness, about 2 1/2 minutes per side for medium. Transfer to work surface; let rest 5 minutes.

Place tortillas at edge of grill to warm and soften, about 1 minute.

Arrange 2 warm tortillas on each of 4 plates. Thinly slice skirt steak across grain. Divide skirt steak and juices equally among tortillas. Spoon relish over each and serve.

The sun poked through the rain clouds this weekend, so we got in the mood for some lighter, summery fare. I dug through our recipe folder and found a couscous salad that was based on something from a Naked Chef episode we saw years ago. It's great served in pita.

Summer Couscous Salad

Ingredients

• 10 ounce box of couscous
• 2 cups of water
• 3 red bell peppers
• 1 handful asparagus, trimmed
• 2 smallish zucchini, sliced lenghwise into 1/4 inch thick planks
• 1 small bunch of green onions, trimmed and finely sliced
• 3 chile peppers, seeded and finely sliced
• 1 handful each of cilantro, italian parsley, mint
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Red wine vinegar
• Salt
• Freshly ground pepper

Place the couscous in a large bowl with the water to soak while the rest of the salad is prepared. Roast the red peppers by placing them directly over the flame of your gas burner to blacken them on all sides. You could also place them under the broiler, turning to blacken each side. Once blackened, place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. As they cool, the steam will loosen the skins for easier removal. Allow to sit for 5 minutes and then remove the skins and seeds and roughly chop. (Alternatively, you could buy pre-roasted red peppers and save yourself the mess.)

On your grill or a grill pan, lightly char the asparagus and zucchini. Roughly chop. Also roughly chop or tear the herbs and place the red peppers, zucchini, chile peppers, green onions, and herbs into the large bowl with the couscous. Mix well.

In a small bowl, mix the lemon juice, olive oil, and 1 tablespoon each of the salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add to the salad and toss well. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper and sprinkle with red wine vinegar until it's tangy enough to suit your palate.

Serve as a side dish or stuff inside pita bread as a main dish.

As mentioned in the post about my Le Cruset cast-iron pot, I've got a chili recipe that Carol and I really enjoy. It's somewhat based on a recipe I found on All Recipes a few years ago, but I've modified it a bit, replacing the ground beef with nicely browned stew beef and adding a few other things here and there. If you've got a few hours free on a Saturday or Sunday, give this one a try!

Chili with Beef

Ingredients

• 2 pounds stew beef, in 1-inch cubes
• Vegetable oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 chile peppers, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 14.5-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 5 whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Salt
• 1 15-ounce can black beans
• 1 15-ounce can kidney beans
• 3 big handfuls tortilla chips, crushed

Trim the beef of any unpleasant looking fat and silverskin. Sprinkle it generously with salt and pepper. Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to a heavy stew pot over medium high heat. You'll want to be sure to turn on your stove hood to high now, if you can, and get out your splatter gaurd, if you have one. Browning the meat can get very messy.

Once the oil begins to shimmer, add the beef, piece by piece until you have a uncrowded single layer of beef. Allow the beef to sit for a few minutes until the side that's facing down is dark brown, but not burned. Turn the beef and brown a second side of each piece. Remove the beef to a bowl and brown the remaining beef in similar batches, adding a little more oil between batches, if needed.

With the beef removed from the pot, turn the heat down to medium and add another tablespoon or two of oil, if needed. Add the onions and a big pinch of salt. As the onions cook, stir occasionally to scrape up the brown, beefy goodness from the bottom of the pot (a.k.a., the fond). Once the onion starts turning translucent, add the chile peppers and garlic, and cook for a few more minutes until the onions are soft.

Pour in the tomatoes and their liquid, breaking up the whole tomatoes with your fingers. (You could chop them prior to adding them, if you'd like to keep your fingers clean). Fill one of the empty tomato cans with water and add to the pot, to raise the liquid level a bit. Add another big pinch of salt and the black pepper, cumin, chili powder, paprika, oregano, cinnamon stick, and cloves. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium low. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.

Stir in the beans and crushed tortilla chips and cook for another 20 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.

Avocados on sale at the grocery store, a few extra slices of bacon from our salmon chowder, and some leftover bread can mean only one thing: bacon avocado sandwiches.

Bacon Avocado Sandwiches

Ingredients

• 6 slices of bacon, cooked
• 1 medium avocado, sliced
• A few slices of pepper jack cheese
• 4 slices of bread

Make a couple of sandwiches, layering the bacon, avocado, and cheese. Eat and enjoy!

Technorati tags: cooking recipe sandwich bacon avocado

We watched a marathon of New Scandinavian Cooking with Tina Nordström on PBS this weekend, which was pretty much wall-to-wall seafood with the occasional moose steak thrown in. All of Tina's salmon dishes reminded me of some salmon chowder I made a while ago, so I dug up an old issue of Gourmet Magazine and made their quick and tasty recipe:

Salmon Chowder with Dill

Ingredients

• 4 bacon slices, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, chopped coarsly
• 2 celery ribs, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 lb boiling potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup water
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 lb salmon fillet, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon butter

Cook the bacon pieces in a 3-quart saucepan, stirring frequently, until crisp. Remove bacon to some paper towels to drain.

Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat from the saucepan and add onion, celery, potatoes, salt, and pepper and cook until the onion is softened, stirring occasionally, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Stir in the water and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the potatoes are just about tender, about 10 minutes.

Add the milk and simmer uncovered for an additional 4 to 5 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the salmon pieces, dill, and butter and simmer until the salmon is just cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Serve sprinkled with the bacon pieces.

I occasionally get in the mood to chop up vegetables. The best way I've found to quell the urge is to whip up a batch of vegetable soup, the first step of which is to make some vegetable stock. The following vegetable stock recipe is from 3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery, a book I bought when my wife (at the time, my girlfriend) was a vegetarian and I wanted to cook for her. The recipe is versatile; I use it for vegetable soup, french onion soup, and even brining my Thanksgiving turkey.

Basic Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

• 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
• 3 large celery ribs, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 3 large carrots, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 2 zucchini, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 1 head of garlic, sliced horizontally
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 6 bay leaves

Preheat the oven to 450°F. After chopping up the vegetables, place them in a large pot. Add the olive oil and toss the vegetables to coat. Spread the vegetables out on a large baking sheet and roast them for 10 minutes. Stir and roast for 5 more minutes, but don't brown them. Put the vegetables back in the pot and add the bay leaves and 12 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Let the stock stand for 10 minutes and then strain and discard the solids. Use the vegetable stock as directed in your recipe.

My wife Carol and I decided that for this Christmas we'd only get each other one present. She got a treadmill and I got a bread knife. They're not exactly equivalent price-wise, but both of us use both of them, so it all works out.

My new knife is a 10 1/2 inch MAC Bread/Roast knife, purchased from The Epicurean Edge. Carol works with a guy that buys so many knives that he's on a first name basis with the people who run the Epicurean Edge. Knowing that Carol was looking for a new bread knife, he called them up and they suggested the MAC.

It's a great knife: sharp, well-balanced, and it cuts through a loaf of bread like, well, a hot knife through butter. Our old bread knife--part of a set of cheap Farberware knives that I bought from Target when I moved into my first apartment--was not a great knife. Cutting through a crusty loaf of the Macrina Bakery's Guiseppe bread we pick up at the Metropolitan Market would require considerable and rather forceful sawing, resulting in a crushed, misshapen bread slice. The new knife practically cuts the loaf just by looking at it, intimidating the bread into falling into even slices. I like it.

Since this is a blog about food, I decided that I should get better aquainted with the food blogs that are out there. There are many. :) I found a nice list of some good ones in a posting at >tastingmenu:

• tastingmenu
• 101 Cookbooks
• Accidental Hedonist
• A Full Belly
• à la cuisine!
• Arthur Hungry
• Becks and Posh
• I Heart Bacon
• Noodle Pie
• Obsession with Food
• Orangette
• Simply Recipes
• The Food Section

Enjoy!

Le Creuset 5-1/2-Quart Round French Oven

One of my favorite pieces of cookware in my kitchen is my red Le Crueset cast-iron round oven. It's heavy as heck, but it sure can make a great pot of stew. This past weekend I made a big batch of chili--I'll post the recipe soon--and my heavy red pot did its job nicely, evenly heating the chili with a constant low heat. It's a great size, too, especially for just the two of us. We've been eating left-over chili for three days now. If you don't have one of these things, you should pick one up. They're not cheap, but it's something that could stay in your family for generations.

The best part of carving a jack-o-lantern for Halloween is the pumpkin seeds. My wife and I carved our pumpkins yesterday and ended up with three cups of big and plump pumpkin seeds. Probably non-coincidentally, my Joy of Cooking daily calendar had a recipe for preparing winter squash seeds. Based on that, here's how I prepared my pumpkin seeds:

Pumpkin Seeds

Separate the seeds from the pumpkin innards and rinse, if desired. Toss the seeds with 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil per each cup of seeds. Spread the seeds out over a baking sheet and bake in a 250° F oven for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.

Once the seeds are dried out, you can either allow to cool and eat them or season them further and toast them in the oven at 350°.

The combination of this weekend's temperature drop and the start of the football season means that if fall's not here yet, it will be soon. Around our kitchen, fall means the reappearance of dishes like stews and casseroles. One of our favorite quick casserole-like dishes is baked macaroni and cheese. We made that today, based on the recipe we found years ago on the back of a box of Mueller's elbow macaroni. We've tried a number of other recipes, but we always come back to this one.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese (with Broccoli)

Ingredients

• 2 cups of uncooked macaroni
• 2 tablespoons of corn starch
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 1/2 cups of milk
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 8 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup of bread crumbs
• 1 cup of broccoli, cut into small pieces (optional)

Cook the macaroni for 7 minutes and drain.

While the macaroni is cooking, combine the corn starch, salt, mustard, and pepper in a small saucepan. Stir in the milk and add the butter. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat.

Stir in all but a big handful of the cheese and the broccoli. Stir in the macaroni. Spray a 2 quart casserole dish with non-stick cooking spray and pour the macaroni and cheese into the dish. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and top with the bread crumbs.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until lightly browned and bubbly. Allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Here's the simple (and tasty) meal we made with the first ripe tomato that came from our backyard garden:

Capellini with Tomato and Basil

Ingredients

• Capellini (angel hair) pasta for two
• 1 medium tomato cut into bite-sized pieces
• Small handful of fresh basil, cut into chiffonade
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• Grated parmagiano-reggiano cheese
• 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil

Cook the pasta according to directions and drain. While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Crush the garlic clove with the side of a knife, remove the peel, and place in the heating olive oil. This will infuse the oil with garlicky goodness, but be sure to turn the garlic before it gets too dark. Remove the garlic when it is browned on all sides.

Add the red pepper flakes to the olive oil and a short time later add the tomato. Allow the tomato to cook for a minute or two and then add the basil. Stir to heat up the basil, then add the cooked pasta. Allow to cook for another minute or two and then remove from the heat and plate it up. Sprinkle a good amount of grated parmagiano-reggiano cheese over the top. Serve and enjoy!

There's something about a nice picture of food that's really pleasing to my eye. I'm not sure how, but every once in a while I've been able to take a nice one food photo myself. The photo here is of a simple salad, one made with precut bagged lettuce, sliced up cucumber and roma tomato, almond slivers, and some store-bought pesto italian dressing. The white salad bowl adds a bit of simple style to the dish. It was taken with a Sony DSC-F717 digital camera.

On the weekends, when we don't get our standard muffin-and-coffee breakfast at the local coffee shop, I sometimes make hard-boiled eggs. Only, I don't boil them. I'm not sure where I saw it (Good Eats, perhaps), but a TV-chef recommended steaming the eggs rather than boiling. That method has worked great for us, so here's how I do it.

Hard-steamed eggs

Ingredients

• Eggs
• Salt and pepper

Add about an inch of water to your steamer pot. We use a 12-inch diameter pot and a serendipitously sized colander that fits nicely in the top, leaving about 3 inches for water below the basket. Bring the water to a boil and reduce the heat a bit to keep it a gentle boil. Put all of your eggs in one basket. (Rather, gently place your eggs in the steamer basket). Put the basket in the pot and cover, allowing the eggs to steam for 12 minutes.

Remove the eggs once they're done cooking and place in a bowl of ice-water to cool them down for safer handling. Tap the eggs repeated on the counter to crack the shells and peel. Cut them up with a fork, add salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Sunday's beautiful weather demanded that I grill dinner out on the deck. So, I bought a flank steak. I used a recipe that I've adapted over the past few years from dishes found in Cook's Illustrated and Fine Cooking.

Herby Flank Steak

Ingredients

• 1 flank steak
• A good handful of fresh herbs (e.g., sage, rosemary, thyme)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 8-10 black peppercorns
• A large pinch of kosher salt
• 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil

Trim all of the unappetizing bits off of the flank steak and let it rest on a cutting board while making the herb rub. Strip the herbs' leaves from the stems and place in a mortar and pestle. This can probably be done in a food processor or with a nice, sharp knife, but what's the fun in that? Add the peppercorns, kosher salt, and the peeled garlic clove to the herbs and grind the whole mess into a green paste. It may take a bit of work, but rosemary has an unpleasant habit of sticking between teeth if left whole.

Add enough olive oil to the paste to loosen it up a bit. You don't want it runny, but it should be thin enough to spread easily over the flank steak. Stir it up and smear half of it over each side of the steak with a spatula (or your hands). Leave the meat on the cutting board while you preheat the grill.

Once preheated, turn the grill down to about medium heat and put on the flank steak. Flip the steak every two to three minutes to ensure a nice, evenly cooked-through piece of meat. Once the flank steak feels somewhat firm to the touch (see this interesting guide to steak doneness) or reads whatever temperature you prefer on an instant-read thermometer, remove the steak to a cutting board and cover with aluminum foil for at least five minutes.

After the meat had rested, cut it into thin strips—about half-an-inch—across the grain of the meat. Be prepared a mess with this step, since meat juices tend run when cutting it. Serve and enjoy!

I served this with some grilled zucchini (cut into quarter-inch strips lengthwise, tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper) and home-fried potatoes (quarter-inch diced Yukon golds, pan-fried in butter and olive oil, with a bit of salt and pepper). It was good.