reasonable FAQ simile

Sometimes the best defense against looniness is a fertile imagination.  Of course, sometimes looniness and a fertile imagination look a lot alike, so you have to be careful.  

When I was single and living in New York City and kind of tired and perhaps it's fair to say a little bit lonely, I took a page out of my preschool pupils' book and conjured up an imaginary friend for myself.  Unlike the little girl in my class who spent a good portion of the morning sitting in her coat cubby having an animated conversation with her pal, I kept it kind of discreet.  What works when you are three begins to look a little silly when you are in your mid-20's (this rule of thumb applies to more than just social skills).  But I got full mileage out of my mental companion.  Though companionable, he was really more of an imaginary valet or personal assistant--more Jeeves than Pooka.  Racing from teaching to graduate school, I would think of all the little tasks I could slough off to Gustavo (he looked kind of like Raul Julia), like picking up my laundry or ironing my clothes or shopping for groceries or getting me a plane ticket to Paris (double imaginary points).  I took the time to imagine he would always pick up fresh flowers while he ran these errands, but let the record reflect my assertion that I never once actually spoke out loud to him or left him a note.  I swear.

No more graduate school in my life now (there are days I wish I was in school, but far more of them when I thank my stars that I am not).  No more lonely.  So Gustavo has retired.  As I move from roasting to chopping to whipping, from the holiday parent assembly to the holiday floor-mopping, my defense against any encroaching looseness on the grip of the sanity controls takes the form of the imaginary mailbag.

Dear Raisin,

What are you making for Thanksgiving?

Dear Raisin,

Thanksgiving this, Thanksgiving that.  What do I feed everyone between now and Thursday, and still have time to make Thursday happen?

Dear Raisin,

Congee is nice, but do you ever wonder about all that whiteness being good for you as you eat bowl after bowl of it?

Dear Raisin,

Am I better off simplifying things as much as possible in order to preserve the time, energy and sanity necessary to have a pleasant, lucid, seated conversation with friends and family, or should I give in to temptation and make all 7 kinds of brussels sprouts that I have bookmarked?

No one outside of my head has actually asked me any of these questions.  But the answers are so easy to provide that the mere act of answering them will give me all the lift I need to sail through the next few days like a float in the Macy's parade (thank goodness for stretch pants).

If you really want to know what I think I may make for Thursday, head over here, where I have a handy list.

If you, like me, face the predictable and unpredictable caloric needs of groups of humans ranging from two to seven (in number) and 7 and three quarters to 88 (in age), then questions two and three, above, have one answer: brown rice congee, which is demystified below.

In answer to question 4, the market is probably out of brussels sprouts anyway (such is the present demand), so you are better off sticking to the one type and safeguarding all your faculties for a confab with your Aunt Matilda.  Heaven help you selecting which recipe, though.  I am still weighing my options.  There is so much I wish to sit still and be grateful for, though, that I will force myself to choose.

brown rice congee

You are going to get a monster headnote here, but the recipe is easy as can be, especially if you have already made the white rice version and consequently do not have to spend any mental energy wondering if this is going to work despite how weird it sounds.

The main differences are, not surprisingly, more water and more time.  Despite the hours of cooking, it basically cooks itself, so can be left to its own devices on a back burner while you make tracks to Turkey Town on the front ones.

Just like its paler cousin, the brown rice version is equally happy made plain, or with tiny slivers of fish or chicken.  It is particularly happy as pictured above: with a tangle of dark greens or broccoli, stir-fried with plenty of garlic and ginger and tamari, and maybe some of this (or whatever equivalent you have handy) on top. Its grainy simplicity is a nice ramp-up to (or recovery from) the digestive olympics on Thursday.

I doubled the batch, which produces a metric ton and will mean that any time anyone is hungry or you are called upon to feed your family in the present despite the peeling and chopping you are doing for their future nourishment, you can just grunt and gesture with your elbow to the pot of congee, from which they are welcome to help themselves.  But you can halve it if you like, in which case you can probably add all the water at once (it wouldn't all fit in my pot; had to cook down for a while first).

2 c short-grain brown rice
24 c water
2t kosher salt

optionally: 1 whole boneless chicken breast, partially frozen (really--makes slicing enormously easy)
2t cornstarch (optional)

Put the rice and water (as much of it as will fit) into a large, heavy pot and bring it to a boil.  Lower the heat to a gentle simmer, and cook and cook and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 4 hours.  While the white rice version requires focused stirring at the outset, to get the grains in good suspension in the water, this one doesn't really demand that until the last hour, when you will want to stir at shorter intervals so you don't scorch the bottom.  This is when I added the last four cups of water, as well, because they would not fit before then and because the increasing thickness demanded it.

When the mixture looks like soupy oatmeal, you are done.  Stir in the salt, and serve it with something delicious on top.

If you'd like to add the chicken, use a very sharp knife to slice the breast very thinly cross-wise, and then stack these slices and cut them into thin ribbons.  Toss the chicken slivers with the cornstarch, and stir them into the hot congee.  They will cook almost instantly.  If there is a reason that you don't want cornstarch, just omit it; no substitution is necessary.

You can also sliver up some fish to add similarly, or get your protein another way by adding some crumbled-up firm tofu to your stir-fried greens.

pitty party

 

Perhaps you already know how to say “cherry pitter” in Italian.  If so, skip down a few lines.  If not, let me be the first to tell you that the word is snocciolatore.  Meaning, at least to my way of top-level linguistic thinking, that one would be correct enough to call the instrument, in English, a “snoculator.”  It’s a handheld device for pitting a single cherry or olive.  I forgot I had one.  Then I remembered. (For the record, in case you are clicking over to fact-check this story on Google Translate, you will be told that “snocciolatore” in Italian translates to “stoner” in English, but if you ask GT to translate “stoner” to Italian, it remains primly mum on the subject.  If you just google up “snocciolatore,” the first thing that will happen is you will see some images of pitting devices, and then the second thing, if you are anything like me, is that you will begin corrupting the lyrics to the Three Stooges version of Bizet's “Toreador” song in your head to accommodate this word.  If you are not anything like me in this regard, count your lucky stars.)

With only a few pounds of cherries to show for my second pass at the trees this week and plenty of snackers in the house, the stock was dwindling for that clafoutis adventure I said I would tell you about.  Before the last pound vanished, I set the youngest offspring to work with the snoculator.  Twenty minutes later, we had one boy, obscured by cherry juice from fingertips to elbows and from ear to ear, and maybe a half pound of neatly pitted cherries. (It’s important to taste every fourth or fifth one that you pit, to compare it to the three or four with pits that you are eating every two minutes to keep your strength up.)

When I was a tot, my mom often cooked from a book called “How to Grow And Cook It.”  I am pretty sure the clafoutis of my youth came from there.  It was a dandy.  We ate it all the time, with all kinds of fruits.  It whips up in a moment and satisfies all kinds of desires.  Years later, when my thoughts ran back around to this custardy dessert that rhymes with "patootie", I turned to a recipe in Molly O’Neill’s New York Cookbook, and I loved that one pretty much too.  And then, once again, I took some years off from clafoutis-making.  But last Friday’s clafoutis was made from that recipe, and wouldn’t you know it but the bloom was off the rose.  The texture was not quite as I hoped, and the flavor only so-so.

Two of my heroines have made clafoutis recently, and their takes—quite different—intrigued me, (here's one, and here's the other) as did a Food52 version.  In the end I triangulated, and what a triangle it was.  If you have never clafouted, think of something along the lines of a dense cake, or a sweet version of Yorkshire pudding, or a popover that has failed in all the right ways.  Think of eating it, as Laura suggests, with a little mascarpone or creme fraiche on top, or think of eating it, as I just did, standing up at the counter.

A classic version gives the snoculator the day off and claims that extra deliciousness results from baking the thing with the pits in place.  I knew someone here would break a tooth, so I sacrificed that element of flavor.  But try it if you feel brave.  If you lack cherries, rest assured a peach or apricot clafoutis will rock your world just as profoundly.

fruity clafoutis

about half a pound of cherries, pitted and halved

a good scraping of lemon zest

a nice splash of white wine

1/3 c sugar (divided)

1/4 c heavy cream

3/4 c whole milk

fat pinch of salt

3 eggs

1/3 c all-purpose flour (I used a gluten-free one and the result was tasty)

2-3 T almond flour or meal (this is probably optional, but it was quite yum)

Mix the cherries, lemon zest, white wine and 1T of the sugar in a small bowl, and let them settle while you mess around with the rest of the tasks.

Preheat the oven to 350.  Generously butter a 10" glass pie plate or ceramic baking dish.

In a medium bowl, combine the remaining sugar and all the other ingredients.  Whisk or blend (with an immersion blender, say) until perfectly smooth.  

Pour the cherries and the juice they have accumulated into the prepared pie dish. (I won't tell anyone if you taste this mixture.)  Now pour the batter over the fruit, and pop that bad boy into the hot oven.  Bake until puffed, set in the center and browned at the edges, about 30-35 minutes--but keep an eye on it after 25 minutes, as ovens vary a lot.

It will deflate rather quickly on its way to a temperature you can safely eat it at, but do not fret.  Still delicious, either gilded with a tart dairy product on top, or eaten as is.  Makes a superior breakfast snack, if you have any left over.

seedy indeedy

We re-homed four of our eleven roosters this week.  Thanks to the miracle that is Craig's List--who is Craig?  the patron saint of loons who know there are other loons out there who want their stuff?--I found a lady who would take as many as we were willing to give her.  That number, for me and my husband anyway, was nine.  Roosters are useful, but not in the concentration we are presently hosting.  When the numbers get too high, it's just a big frat party and the feed bills go up while the poor beleaguered hens go bald and form unions.

Posting something on Craig's List definitely opens your world up to some chaffy emails, but the woman we ended up with seemed like the real deal.  She and I made a date.  Here at the homestead, we prepared to load the boys up.  I wish I could give you the entire transcript of my younger daughter's litany as we considered the menfolk of the coop.  (Not him--he was the little brown chick we loved so much!  Not HIM, for goodness' sake--he is Fern's brother!  Not him--he is too old to have to get used to a new place. And so on.) In the end, we parted with four, because it was very clear that four was as many as we were parting with peacefully in one day. Maybe you know that look that children can develop, around the edges, when the needle on their main gauge is jumping towards "overload."  

I drove with four quiet roosters to an exit on the highway halfway between the lady's loony home and my own.  I stopped at the appointed meeting place, having arrived first.  Quietness ceased.  Mad, competitive quadrophonic cock-a-doodling commenced.  It was pouring with rain, so I sat in the car with the windows up and let me tell you, sound accumulates quickly in a space like that. Mercifully, this decibel level prevents deep introspection.

Per my husband's suggestion, I frisked the lady for marinade, large casseroles and recipes for coq au vin.  She came up clean, so I transferred four roosters from my kennel boxes to hers without, I am pleased to say, releasing any live birds into the Friendly's parking lot or onto the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Four down, five to go.  It's a process.

Today, it's not raining anymore. It's a nice day, and someone left the door open...

...so you-know-who was discovered in the dining room.  I think it's sweet that she shares my interest in cooking.

Food news, you ask?  

Hmm.  When I am operating under an appreciable but manageable amount of stress, I try with varying degrees of success to take the whole "body is a temple" approach to self-care.  Here, dear carriage of my being--here is a green juice for you.  Here is a yoga class.  Here is some balanced nutrition, served at regular intervals on a plate while you sit in a chair.  Perhaps this is just me, but when the going gets tougher, when the needles on my gauges are heading for the red area, that strategy goes out the window faster than whatever it is that comes to your mind that defenestrates quickly.  (Suddenly I cannot think of a thing, other than the flaming log my uncle threw out onto his suburban lawn in 1972, shortly after lighting a festive Thanksgiving fire, when it became clear that the fireplace in his home was more decorative than functional, but that mental image may not speak as directly to your mind's eye as it does to mine. Trust me: he did it rapidly.)  

When I need it most, when my weary self would derive the greatest benefit from that good nutrition and tender care I spoke of, then what I begin to crave runs more to gummy bears and whoopie pies and I have to watch myself very carefully.

Things like sugar and wheat, which I can flirt with to a degree when all is right with my world, are things I need to steer quite clear of when I am taxed.  But I am a big believer in comfort food.  A dilemma.  Enter pudding!  I love things on a spoon, and despite my devotion to spicy food, I loooooove things like tapioca--gloppy and gummy and mild.  My friend Laura turned me on to chia seed pudding a while ago, and it is just absolutely the ticket at the moment. Here is her sophisticated version, and below is how that panned out in my kitchen.

If your thinking about chia seeds, like mine, was stuck here:

 

then you might like to know that chia seeds, like flax seeds, are rich in a certain useful kind of omega-3 fatty acid that your body can use to reduce inflammation, and you might also like to know that very little time and few kitchen skills indeed are called for here.  This is a quick experiment. If you like tapioca, you are likely to like it.  You can customize the flavor as you wish and I bet you could use a packaged nut milk or coconut milk to make it--I just happen to vigorously dislike the packaged kind, and the home kind takes about three minutes to whip together and totally smokes the boxed stuff in terms of flavor and consistency.

I am not really sure how to weave it into the narrative here, but I feel you should also be aware that this exists, and so does this.  I would not want your errant googling to lead you there, and think I was holding out on you.

chia pudding

a scant cup of almonds (or maybe hazelnuts, or cashews if you lean that way), raw or toasted

a couple tablespoons of sesame seeds (optional, if you like the flavor)

1/2 cup chia seeds (for reasons I cannot explain, the dark ones are much easier to work with than the white ones, which are very prone to clumping)

3T honey or maple syrup or sorghum

dash vanilla

pinch of sea salt

Put the nuts and sesame seeds in the container of your blender with about 3 cups of water, and let them soak for a bit--I have soaked them for a minute, and for an hour, and seen recipes that suggest you soak them for 8-12 hours, and while there may be levels of nutritional difference between the various outcomes, they all taste the same to me).  Grind them entirely, and pour into a fine mesh strainer, or a cloth-lined one if you don't have the mesh one.  Press or squeeze the solids until they are as dry as you can get them. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of nut milk, maybe a little more.  [The paste that is left behind can be turned into nut butter (by combining it with some coconut oil and maybe a little flavoring of your choosing), used in baking, thrown into your oatmeal or smoothie, or be cast straight into the yard for whatever kind of bird dwells in yours.  You can also use a food dehydrator to make crackers out of it, but I am going to spare you those details for the moment.]

Put the nut milk and all the remaining ingredients into a jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake it like you mean it, until everything is well-combined and evenly distributed.  Refrigerate for a few hours, shaking periodically for the first half hour, until chilled and set.  You can garnish it beautifully with chopped nuts or orange sections, like Laura did, or you can sneak off with the jar and a spoon, like I did.

recipe for trouble

Back in the days when we went to a school far, far, away from our house, we used to occasionally give rides to a nice fellow in the 9^th grade who needed to make the same commute.  He had been schooled in manners and conversation and was carefully polite at all times, so he was not exactly relaxed but still a pleasure to have in the car.  He and my oldest nephew were about the same age, and said nephew was looking into a nature/survival camp that I knew this boy had attended, so one morning I asked him about it.  He warmed to the topic, especially when describing the day at camp when they made mustard from scratch.  “That stuff was amazing,” he said, genuinely enthusiastic and energized by the recollection.  “One whiff cleaned the boogers right out of your nose.” 

I thought of him yesterday, when I fell prey to a chic and gourmet-looking recipe for mustard.  You know that old saw about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing repeatedly, but expecting a different result?  This is how I sometimes feel about recipes.  I do love recipes, and thanks to them I have arrived at some lovely places.  I have a handwritten recipe card from a dearly departed friend, and one of the instructions among the sparse few given is “batter will look curdled but this is OK.”  Love that.  Love when a recipe alerts you to the likelihood that you may think you have botched it when it’s going just as it should.  I also like a recipe that warns you of actual pitfalls for disaster, and that gives you remedies to hold in reserve.  I like a loose guideline, like most of Nigel Slater’s breezy “this is how I do it but do it how you like” instructions, that empower you to make things just the way you want to eat them, and I like a schoolmarm to hold me accountable step-by-incremental-step when I am doing something complicated.

It is always possible that someone’s tastes will differ from mine, and that a recipe that causes them to write swooning words of praise will turn out to emphasize or omit the very thing I dislike or rely upon.  But this can generally be spied from a distance and corrections made for personal preferences. 

Here is what I don’t like: recipes that trick you into thinking something will turn out better than it sounds, and recipes that omit either necessary warnings or crucial information.

It seems to be a rule of the universe that I only fall prey to these when they require a significant cash outlay for ingredients I may never find a use for again or which I will waste, or which will produce a monstrous quantity of something inedible.  To wit, the gluten-free version of my revered and cherished Jim Lahey Overnight Bread, not perpetrated upon me by that walking saint but by another (this has to be the triple crown title-holder for Worst Smelling Food, Most Costly and Ultimately Useless Ingredients and Most Haunting Bad Flavor); a very pricey roast pork that was too salty even for the dogs, and the mustard mentioned above. 

About the nostril thing, I can attest that my young passenger of years back was totally on the up and up.  About how good the outcome would be, I cannot say the same about the recipe-writer.  The mustard and I have had 24 hours to recuperate, though and I begin to suspect one of the problems with the recipe is that it forgets to tell you to let it mellow for a spell before you throw it out.  It tastes significantly better today than it did yesterday, which is a low bar but still gives me hope.

Maybe you can see how this leads us directly to potatoes.  Here is how: my mom gave me a new cookbook and I immediately felt a pull towards a fennel and potato dish.  I thought I had more of the things it required than I turned out to have, by which time it was Sunday afternoon and I was not going back to the store.  I made the necessary adjustments for limitations of ingredients, and a few more for taste and the future health of the arteries.  It was delish.  Now you can see the whole arc of reason, right?  Thought so.

What is brilliant about this recipe is that it saves the harried cook from painstakingly layering potatoes and their seasonings by mixing it all in a bowl first, which custom-coats each slice of tater.  I cut the heavy cream called for with half and half, and lacking the specified onion went with garlic, which seems right.  Onions are always sweeter than I expect them to be, and the fennel is plenty sweet too—garlic kept things on a nice savory track.  Not a speck of it was left over.

fennel and potato gratin

heavily adapted from Lisa Caponigri’s Whatever Happened To Sunday Dinner?

1 large (soft-ball sized) fennel bulb

3 T olive oil

4-6 cloves of garlic, minced

3-4 large russet or baking potatoes

1 c heavy cream, divided

1 c half & half

2 ½ c coarsely grated fontina (about half a pound), divided

1t sea salt

fresh pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350.  Oil or butter a heavy, shallow baking dish (I used my big enameled cast iron one, which is about 10x14).

Trim any stalks from the fennel bulb, slice off the bottom and remove the outer layer if it is bruised or grubby. Split it in half lengthwise and then slice it into about ½ “ strips.  I ended up with about 3 cups.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat.  Sauté the garlic for a minute, then add the fennel and cook, stirring regularly, until it is just tender, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, scrub and thinly slice the potatoes—no more than ¼ “ thick.  In a large bowl, combine ½ c of the cream, the half and half, 2 c of the cheese, and the salt and pepper.  Add the potatoes and toss to combine.

When the fennel is cooked, toss it in with the potatoes.  Dump this mixture into the prepared baking dish and press everything down with a spatula to even it out and submerge as much as possible.  Drizzle the remaining cream and the reserved cheese on top.  Not all the potatoes will be under the level of the sauce, but the top ones should be dressed with a topcoat of cream, between what was clinging to them and what you have just added.  

Bake until browned and tender, about 1 ½ to 1 ¾ hours.  If the top is browning too quickly, reduce the oven heat to 325 for the last half hour of cooking.  Let stand about ten minutes before you serve it.

the loving spoonful

If you are lucky enough to be loved by Millie Chan, you may have received a container of this when your spirit or body was overwhelmed. Millie is a Chinese chef who grew up in Texas, and she is as likely to blow your socks off with spring rolls as pecan pie. It’s a powerful combination of skill-sets, let me tell you.

I am lucky enough to have known Millie almost my whole life. Millie and her husband introduced me to mine. I have seen a lot of pots of congee pass from her kitchen into my family’s kitchens, and when I was asked to make a meal of exceptional gentleness and appeal for a friend in need I went straight to Millie’s book.

There are not many ingredients involved here, and the process could hardly be simpler. If it is Monday, chilly, gloomy or taxing in your world--or the world of a loved one--actually or metaphorically, this may be just the ticket. Enormous reward-to-effort ratio makes it even more satisfying.

rice congee

Adapted from Millie Chan’s Kosher Chinese Cookbook

serves 4; doubles easily

10 cups of water

1 cup long-grain white rice (I used jasmine rice, but any long-grain white will do)

2 t kosher salt

1/2 of a boneless chicken breast

1 t cornstarch

½ t kosher salt

to serve:

sesame oil

tamari or soy sauce

very finely minced fresh ginger

coarsely chopped cilantro

maybe some minced scallions

Combine the water and the rice in a large heavy pot. Bring to a boil, stir quite thoroughly, then turn the heat as low as it will go and simmer gently, covered, for an hour and a half. Really. Stir occasionally to make sure the rice does not stick to the pot. When the congee is done, it will look like a thick, smooth gruel with barely visible rice kernels (think oatmeal) and you will wonder what the hell I am having you do. Stir in the salt. Now you have plain congee, and you can stop there and go straight for the garnish.

If you want chicken congee, then while the rice is simmering, finely sliver the chicken breast (a very sharp knife and a partially frozen piece of chicken will simplify this task immeasurably.) Don't try to make it perfect, just chop it as best you can. Toss the chicken in a small bowl with the cornstarch and salt. The attempt to toss will lead to a worrisome clump, but mix as well as possible and it will work out fine in the end. When the congee is done, stir the chicken in and keep stirring, to separate the chicken pieces, until the chicken meat turns white.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with a sprinkle of ginger and cilantro, a light drizzle each of sesame oil and soy sauce, and if you are feeling the need for some heat, a little black bean and garlic sauce from the Asian section of your local Gourmet Shoppe.

Note: Millie says you can also substitute fish for the chicken, by slicing 1/2 a pound of a mild white fish quite thinly and seasoning it with a teaspoon of salt, a dash of pepper and a dash of sesame oil. Portion the seasoned, raw fish among the bowls, and ladle the hot rice over it. This will cook the fish.