Tag Recipe

One (Zucchini) Out Of Many

Michael 3 Comments

My last post I said I was going to do something I hadn’t done for a while, complain, which may have been somewhat inaccurate. This post runs to something I don’t do often enough and is surely quite accurate, be grateful. Not any old gratitude is it that I am expressing, but heartfelt thanks for my nearly 19 year old electric range, and my almost 29 year old eccentric daughter.

Most social media platforms are the most antisocial of platforms but I indulge for the special interest groups. Support for chronic illness or rare diseases is easier when you involve most of the planet. And hobbies or interests can be explored more easily when you spend most of your days in a smallish apartment by way of a connected phone, tablet, or laptop while plopped in a comfy chair. It is one of the latter groups of groups that reminded me of how good I must have it. Yes, I seem to be quite more fortunate than others not among those sharing medical burdens but of those who enjoy cookery to fill a few otherwise dull hours throughout the week.

Apparently one cannot really cook unless using a $500,000 range metering gas fed flames unless one instead is cooking over the open flameless heat of natural chuck charcoal or in the smoke of natural hardwoods in a specialized outdoor vessel. Or so those of my cooking aficionado collective extol in their various posts, complete with pictorial evidence.

Yesterday my daughter interrupted my trip to the local farmers market to bring me a basket of bounty from her backyard garden. Included in that were several zucchini, just the right amount for one of my favorite summer treats, zucchini fritters. Or zucchini cakes if you want to think more healthily, but just barely. And handful of readily available pantry ingredients and 60 minutes later we were sitting on the patio enjoying piping hot patties of grated zucchini dipped in ranch dressing enjoying the summer sun’s warmth and shine.

Thanks to my apartment complex provided and now aging electric stove I enjoyed a most wonderful repast on a most wonderful break with the most wonderful offspring. I’d include photographic evidence but we are it.

You’ll just have to take my word that I expressed the right amount of gratitude.

—-”

Bonus recipe! Real good zucchini fritters

1-1/2 pounds zucchini, shredded and drained.
1/2 large yellow onion, shredded
1/2 large red onion, shredded
1 or 2 or even 3 Italian banana pepper, chopped fine
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 teaspoons coarsely ground pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 tsp adobo powder (or chili powder)
1/2 tap garlic powder

Shred zucchini and onions. I use the shredding disk on my food processor. A real cooking hobbyist would use the large holes of a box grater. Place in a colander over a bowl, or to be like me into a salad spinner, and sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the salt and allow to sit for 10 to 25 minutes.

Mix flour, baking soda, the remaining salt, and the herbs in a small bowl.

Transfer the zucchini and onions to a clean tea towel and wring the devil out of them. Hopefully all the water will also get wrung out. If you were like me first take them for a spin in the salad spinner and then transfer them to the towel and squeeze with all your might.

Heat a large frying pan to medium high and add enough oil to cover the surface. (I use light olive oil but any normal oil will do. I’ve even used corn oil. But don’t get fancy and try to use coconut or avocado oil for goodness sake!) Assemble a cooling rack in a rimmed baking sheet and heat your oven to 250°F (120°C).

Plop the now abused zucchini and onions into a large bowl and fluff with a fork or some other fork like object. Mix in the chopped banana pepper and the beaten egg. (Thought I forgot about them, didn’t you?) Add the flour mixture in 3 installments a making sure each is completely incorporated.

Add a reasonable amount of the mixture to the hot pan and squish down to about 1/4 inch thickness. (I use a quarter cup for six 4 inch diameter fritters fried in two batches but do your own thing). Fry until golden brown, admit 3 to 5 minutes per side then transfer to the cooling rack. In between batches add oil if need to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to return to heat. Once all fritters are fried and resting nicely on the rack, pop the baking sheet into the oven for 15 minutes.

Eat and enjoy. Best shared with a friend or friendly relative.

Four and Twenty

Michael 5 Comments

Although not as famous as the two dozen blackbirds, a single chicken is the more likely thought of filling when it comes to considering what type of savory pie to have for dinner. And while the rest of the northern hemisphere is fascinated with all things pumpkin as soon as the sun passes through the autumnal equinox, my sure Sign of Fall is the return of the pot pie.

Clearly I’m not the only one who thinks this way. I probably was the first to come up with it but like all great ideas, mine was stolen and exploited by others. Yes, you see, even though all other pies may be lumped together celebratorially on March 14, pot pies have their own day on September 23. This year that was the first full day of fall. See?

PotPieOf course, chickens aren’t the only animals to find their way between sheets of pie dough. Beef can easily play the role of filling in a pot pie. Lamb fills a particular pot pie, a Shepherd’s Pie. Chopped pork and pork jelly find their way into another traditional savory pie. Fish pies rarely make it to the American side of the Atlantic while crab and cheese filled pies don’t often make it to England’s shore but both have ardent fans. Although pumpkin fills the sweet side of piedom, another favorite fall squash, the butternut, satisfies the meatless savory pie wisher.

With all these options, tonight’s dinner still is going to be a classic chicken pot pie*. I know, I’m almost a whole week late, but last Saturday the temperature was a summery 84° (29°C). Today’s high isn’t getting out of the 60s (or about 17°C). Not quite down to fall standards, but certainly autumnaler.

*Chicken Pot Pie

Preheat oven to 425°F (200°C) and assemble ingredients.

Filling

1 pound chicken breast, diced or cubed
1 8 oz. package frozen peas
1 large carrot, sliced
1/2 cup celery sliced
1/2 medium onion, diced

In frying pan, cook chicken in olive oil until all pink is gone, remove and set aside. Cook onion celery and carrot until softened. Return chicken to pan, cover with water, bring to a boil then reduce to simmer and allow to continue cooking for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside while preparing sauce.

Sauce

1/3 cup butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tap celery seed
12 oz. chicken broth
6oz. half-and-half (or milk)

In a medium saucepan, melt butter then add onion and cook until softened. Stir in flour and cook until flour is completely combined to make a roux. Slowly stir in chicken broth and half-and-half. Add salt, pepper, and celery seed. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick.

Pie

Chicken filling and sauce
2×9 inch prepared pie crusts

Line pie pan with one pie crust. Fill with chicken filling mixture and pour thickened sauce over filling. Cover with second pie crust, seal edges, and make some small slits in the top.

Bake at 425 °F for 30-35 minutes.

Or, pick up prepared pie at local grocery store usually next to the rotisserie chickens. Not everybody is retired and has all day to play in the kitchen.

 

A Sticky Situation

Michael Leave a comment

I finally got my syrup last weekend. Regular readers know that I’ve been without my local syrup for the past few months having missed the 2015 sugaring season. But last week I was able to get to one of the local maple festivals and replenish my supply. In fact, I might have overplenished it but I’ve always said you can’t have enough pure maple syrup. I’m sure I’ve said it sometime. At least once.

Anyway, to make a short story long, I picked up a couple of jugs of some freshly prepared syrup for all my maple needs and discovered somebody changed the grading system for my syrup. You may have heard this before and if you had feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs and go straight to the bit about food that comes right after them. Of course you do know I’ll feel horrible about it if you do.

What once was a fairly straightforward grading system has been turned into a jumble of color and taste. Some say it more appropriately describes the product. I say the big sugarers have finally gotten their way. There are still four grades of syrup. But where there used to be Fancy, Grade A Amber/Dark Amber, Grade B, and Grade C, there are now Grade A, Grade A, Grade A, and Grade A. Really, four grades all A. I can see it now – “Major Mega Marketer Maple Syrup, Now New and Improved with only Grade A Syrup!”

Really, there are now four (4!) Grade A syrups – Grade A: Golden Color and Delicate Taste (formerly Fancy), Grade A: Amber Color and Rich Flavor (Formerly Grade A Amber and Grade A Dark Amber), Grade A: Dark Color and Robust Flavor (Formerly Grade B), and Grade A: Very Dark and Strong Flavor (Formerly Grade C or Commercial (not routinely sold as is (or was) but sold to factories and confectioners for use in other products)).

Whatever you call it, I picked up some dark colored, robustly flavored former Grade B syrup (because I use it in cooking as much as over pancakes) and celebrated with a great maple dinner. You make it too.

In a small sauce pan sweat one coarsely chopped small onion, add a small can baked beans and stir in one ounce (2 tablespoonsful) syrup, a couple of dashes of hot sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. While that’s going on, brown 1 tablespoonsful of butter in a small pan, add an one-half ounce syrup. Add a single portion ham steak to the pan and baste with the butter/syrup mixture until the ham is warm through.  Remove the ham and toss a handful or spring peas in the remaining butter/syrup glaze. Serves one.

You can be a maple nut too. Replace the sugar in almost any recipe with former Grade B maple syrup substituting ¾ cup syrup for each cup sugar and reduce the liquid in your recipe by about 75%.

Four Grade A classifications. By an official department of the United States of America. Of course that department is the Department of Agriculture, the same department that keeps reshaping the food pyramid. And they are some people who worry that the next president might be Hillary or The Donald.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

It’s the Not So Great Pumpkin

Michael 2 Comments

According to the gardening section of our local paper this was a banner year for pumpkins.  Around here you don’t need a reporter to tell you that.  Pumpkin harvests are far ahead of any recent year and they are still growing.  Pumpkins are everywhere!  Grocery stores have them by the crateful; pumpkin patches are overflowing; backyard gardeners actually grew usable pumpkins this year. On a trip to a drug store He tripped right into a crate of fresh pumpkins right there in the front aisle between the cell phone cases and the “as seen on TV” end cap.  Truly, pumpkins are everywhere!

Homes are filling with plans for pumpkin pies, rolls, cakes, cookies, and custards.  All of the good things that pumpkin has to offer when fall rolls around are going to be as everywhere as the pumpkins themselves are today.  And that’s good.  That’s great.  Usually fall means canned pumpkin for some pies and a pumpkin roll.  But it’s only in the years where there are so many fresh pumpkins that home bakers become more adventurous and try their hands at some of the great pumpkin offerings usually paged right on by in their cookbooks.

Unfortunately, “adventurous” is not limited to the merry home cook.  The commercial world has also caught on that there are a lot of pumpkins this year.  For years we’ve dealt with the pumpkin shaped peanut butter cups and the pumpkin shaped marshmallow “peeps” and the chewy pumpkins that you find on the shelf next to the candy corn and keep hoping they taste like the candy corn but they really taste more like the cob.  And that’s usually it.  A few things that look like pumpkins and taste like something else.  Well, not any more.

It must have started with the coffee shops.  Every year they all come up with their own version of pumpkin spice coffee.  Not bad if you like pumpkin and coffee.  Sort of like eating a piece of pumpkin pie while speeding down the highway on your way to work.  (Not really but those guys from Seattle spend a bazillion dollars wanting us to feel that way and who are we to burst their bubble?)  But now, things are out of control!  Just in yesterday’s paper, in one advertising insert for just one mega-store chain, it said that you can go in and buy pumpkin flavored ground coffee, tea bags, latte, oatmeal, yogurt, Oreos, Toll House chips, and chewing gum.  Pumpkin flavored chewing gum?  Really?

We think maybe someone is carrying this pumpkin thing a little too far now.  Pumpkin flavored chewing gum.  Hmm.  That will show up at the discount houses soon.  Now if you’ll excuse us, we saw a recipe for pumpkin pie rice pudding we want to try.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

Food Rules!

Michael Leave a comment

“It was some sort of curry but it needed something,” She of We was telling He of We of her supper a little earlier that evening.  It seemed to be not very memorable, but then, “but then I thought ‘I bet it will be better if I add some parmesan cheese to it’ so I did and it did.  You’re probably not supposed to add parmesan to curry.”  And that started us down the path lined with food rules.

Food should be fun to make, to serve, and to eat.  There shouldn’t be any rules.  But there are rules all over food.  Don’t add cheese to fish.  Serve red wine with red meat.  Add oil to vinegar.  Parmesan and curry don’t go together.  As far as we’re concerned there is only one food rule.  Enjoy what you eat.

Recipes are just rules lined up in numerical order.  Sometimes, recipes are so daunting and the ingredients so obscure that it’s impossible to satisfy We’s Rule of Food: Enjoy What You Eat.  The way we figure, unless you’re a restaurant and you want every crab cake to taste exactly the same or the enchilada on Tuesday to taste just like the enchilada on Saturday you don’t really need a recipe.  A guide, yes.  A formula, no. 

When we look for recipe books we look for the ones with the stories about the food and the cooks.  What was the author/chef thinking, or doing, or remembering when he or she first put those ingredients together.  How many times did the middle child serve as tester before it came out right?  What are the stories behind the food?  How your grandmother taught you to spot the freshest chicken is a much more interesting tale than how much chicken to bone for the lemon chicken salad.  If we like the story, we’ll try the food.  And if we don’t like the food, we’ll at least have read a good story.

Food rules (the noun) have no place in your kitchen.  Food rules (the verb) is what makes a kitchen. 

Food Rules!  We like that.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?