Jet Lagged Shopping

Don't go grocery shopping hungry. Don't go grocery shopping drunk. And now I must add:

Don't go grocery shopping tired and jet lagged. I did this coming back from Germany. With a couple friends coming over for dinner a couple days later. I had no idea what I was going to make. Which should have set off big, loud, fire alarm style warning bells. Of course I was tired and jet lagged so the bells fell on foggy inattentive ears. And off to Whole Foods I went. Remembering my previous debacle with the fish counter I avoided that. However that was where my good judgement for the day ended. I moved straight to the red meat counter. And what happened after that was kind of a blur. There was some sort of ordering, a parcel was handed to me, and a few minutes later money exchanged hands.

Fast forward to when I actually woke up and thout about cooking dinner. Opening the fridge was like Christmas when you are a teenager. Are you going to get that perfect pink Walkman you have been begging for? Or will it be pink socks that you father will try to make some joke about that he got the color right and you have to pretend you like it. Well, to my surprise I had actually bought butterflied leg of lamb. Have I ever cooked this cut of meat? No. Did I even know what this piece of meat was when I bought it? No. Did I have a recipe? Well, the Internet is an amazing thing. After an hour or so of searching and being totally unsatisfied with all the options I decided to make something up. Garlic and rosemary stuffed lamb based in a balsamic and red wine glaze. Came out amazing. I was thoroughly impressed. And not as fatty as I thought it would be. Meat was beautiful. The sides were pretty standard oven roasted potatoes and spinach salad with bacon and goat cheese. Desert was also something I completely made up.

I saw a pie recipe for salted caramel pie. But I couldn't for the life of me remember where I saw it. So I made the caramel part I thought I remembered and pored it over apples sautéed with cinnamon. And there you have it, Caramel Apple Pie. And it was darn good. Caramel could have been slightly softer, but overall it was pretty awesome.

Recipes for both to follow later. Time to land. Off the Charleston. The land of decadent seafood!

Visions of Sugarplums

We just put a contract on a new house. And by new I mean brand-spankin', smellin' the paint, picking out the granite new. In Annapolis, MD. A block from the water. And best of all it has an enormous kitchen. A feeding the masses sort of kitchen. And since it is new I get to pick out appliances! So, I'm taking a poll. Do I need a 48" Wolf range with an infrared grill?

Do you have any idea what I could cook with a stove and an oven like that? First meal, Tur-Duck-In! We are hoping to close around thanksgiving. That could mean Christmas in the new house. And cooking all sorts of sweets and savories and snacks and big meals in the new kitchen. Tur-Duck-In may be a little much, but I can't wait to do something equally outlandish. Now, do I really need a 48" stove?

After all, I did cook thanksgiving dinner for more than 20 people in my shoebox sized kitchen in Germany. And it was pretty successful. But the big stove would be so fun! And maybe I would do more entertaining like I did in charleston. Like the time I cooked beef Wellington for Trey's boss. Or the Chinese New Years party that had more people than our wedding. Or the Oktoberfest party with schnitzel, kase spatzle, and apfel strudel. There are definite benefits to being "the commander's wife." ok, so the plastered on smile and small talk with the other wives about the price of cabbage isn't so much fun. Or that silent pressure that the response to every question is either "we're just so excited about (fill in something inane and mandatory like having to listen to someone drone on for hours about how important it is to volunteer for the presidents day fund raiser)" or "of course I didn't mind the deployment.".

So fast forward the couple weeks since I started this. We actually did buy the Wolf range. And Sub-Zero fridge. Yes, I am spoiled. So......

Tur-Duck-In at my place!

Warm and Soft

When I'm sick there is nohing that I want to be more than someplace warm and soft. Right now my throat feels like someone has taken a power sander to the inside. And my head has a full orchestra of jackhammers and cement drills going on. And don't get me started on how I can barely take a breath because a 400 pound gorilla is sitting on my chest. So what did I decide to do? Yup, you guessed it, NOT stay in my nice warm bed and continue to eat the velvety garlic chicken soup I made from scratch yesterday. No. I got up at 4 am and took a flight to New Jersey. Where it is raining.  And I'm lost.  Of course I have my GPS with me.  I still got lost.  I'm good like that.

Fast forward a few hours and I made it through, made the plane by seconds, sat on the runway for an hour (grumble grumble grumble).  But I did make it back to the house in time for bath time and one more cup of soup before crawling into my bed.  Aaaaaahhhhhhh.

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of soup.  Something about being force-fed vegetable soup that was "healthy" when I was a kid.  Just to be clear, anytime you tell your kids something is healthy they will hate it.  Healthy means it tastes bad.  So, this soup is NOT healthy, it is actually just tasty.  Especially if you like garlic.  The best thing about this soup is that it is creamy and almost velvety.  Perfect for soothing a sore throat.

Chicken, Garlic and Bacon Soup 

10 Cloves of garlic, sliced thin

2 Pieces thick bacon

3T Butter

1/4C Flour

6C Chicken Stock (homemade is best)

3 Egg Whites

Salt and Pepper to taste

Render the fat from the bacon slices and remove bacon when crisp.  Add butter.  Saute garlic in butter and bacon fat until translucent and sweet smelling (yes, garlic does smell sweet when cooked, I promise, its really really good, even 10 cloves of it).  Whisk flour into mixture and cook, stirring often, until mixture looks medium brown and smells nutty (or just rely on look if your nose is all stuffed up like mine was).  Pour in 3-4 cups chicken stock and whisk to remove lumps.  Bring to low boil and cook for 10-15min.  If soup appears too thick, add additional stock.  Soup should coat the back of a spoon but not be too dense.  While whisking, add egg whites and cook additional 2min whisking constantly.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with crusty french bread and crumbled bacon on top.  Best eaten curled up in bed on a rainy day.

Fair and Balanced Dinner

In case you haven't caught onto the recent theme (no, not the failures theme, the actual food I'm trying to cook), I'm trying to eat healthy.  We're in a land of whatever you want at whatever time you want and while I'm all for buying a lawn mower at 3am, I do want to keep some of the habits we've established by living overseas.  Namely eating food that is fresh.  Perhaps even prepared by me.  Luckily for me, and unluckily for my husband and my bank account, we live walking distance to a Whole Foods.  And yes, they are incredibly expensive, and no, I can't help myself.  Luckily this one doesn't sell caviar.  Just over-priced eggplants and the like.  This one also has a pretty nice fish counter.  Of course you need a credit check just to approach, but once you've been reviewed by the loan officers you are allowed to actually look for what you will over-buy and then only cook half of.  Which is all beautiful.


Now, I'm usually a salmon or tuna girl, as is my husband, since they most closely resemble red meat.  He likes sword fish, although I'm not a fan.  White fish to me is hit or miss.  Sometimes they just taste like a carrier for the sauces and sometimes there's a flavor.  Mulling over all these things, I"m pacing the fish counter.  The loan officers begin to be concerned that I'm running too many numbers in my head and perhaps am not able to afford the almost criminally beautiful layout of oceanic tastiness in front of me.  In the nick of time the light-bulb goes on and I settle on red snapper.  Yes, its a white fish, but I've heard great things and have actually had it and liked it a time or two.


Of course I buy the snapper without knowing how I'm going to cook it.  A quick internet search pops up some great inspiration and I settle on an Asian style.  Sweet and spicy soy glaze over the fish while it cooks, and a cabbage, red pepper, and onion stir fry.  To the side I had a cold soba noodle salad with a light peanut dressing.  All in all, the flavors were perfect, nothing was overpowering, the stir fry was still slightly crispy and soaked up the extra glaze nicely.  Oh yeah, and the fish cooked perfectly and tasted pretty darn awesome.


So, fresh veggies, a small portion of lean protein, and a whole grain side.  Perhaps the hippies at Whole Foods are wearing off on me.  Regardless, I'm pretty pleased with making a tasty, healthy, and balanced dinner.  Recipes below:


Red Snapper and Stir Fry

1 red bell pepper sliced thin

2 cups thinly slice Napa cabbage

1/2 thinly sliced red onion

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon season rice vinegar

3/4 cup Sweet Spicy Soy Glaze (see below)

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

four 4-ounce red snapper or grouper fillets with skin

Preheat oven to 350.  Oil baking pan with 2 teaspoons vegetable oil.  Place red snapper fillets skin side down.  Pour 1/2 C of Sweet Spicy Soy glaze over the fillets.  Bake in the oven for 20min or until nearly cooked through.  Turn oven to broil for an additional 5min to caramelize the glaze, basting additional glaze over the fish just prior if necessary.  While the fish cooks, heat 1T vegetable oil in a non-stick pan until almost smoking.  Add bell peppers and onions, sauteing while stirring for 1-2 minutes.  Add cabbage and continue to stir, preventing the vegetables from burning, for no more than 7-8 minutes.  Add rice vinegar and saute for an additional 1-2 minutes. Take off of heat.


Serve fish and vegetables with additional glaze on the side.




Sweet Spicy Soy Glaze

1/2 pound shallots (about 5 large)

1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup water

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon finely grated peeled fresh gingerroot

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest

Heat vegetable oil in a sauce pan and caramelize shallots, about 5min.  Add all other ingredients and cook together for 10-12 minutes so that all flavors meld.  Spoon over fish or vegetables.

Two at a Time

Yup.  That's how we're doing it these days.  Two at a time.  Now that there are veggies available other than potatoes and cabbage, I'm attempting to cook 2 vegetables for every meal.  Yes, that is difficult.  And no, they are not always good.  Tonight's were 50/50.  See, that's the good thing about doing 2 different veggies, you have a 50/50 shot at getting one right.  Either that, or you bomb both and feel like a complete failure, crawling into a bottle of cheap merlot washed down with take-out chinese.  Nothing complements the bitter taste of failure like cheap liquor and take-out.

But back to tonight.  Tonight was not a complete failure.  It was a learning experience.   Really.  I'm serious.  Ok, so kind of was a failure.  Damn, that merlot is looking pretty good right now.  The attempt was bacon sauteed brussels sprouts and oven sweet potato fries.  The sweet potatoes actually came out with a nice flavor since I broiled them with olive oil, a little bacon grease, salt, pepper, and cajun spices.  The texture was a little bit more like mashed potatoes than crispy fries, but overall the taste was excellent.

The brussel sprouts were also a learning experience.  Don't order me the take-out yet!  This one wasn't a failure.  The texture was nice, the color was nice, and after boiling them I sauteed them with bacon.  If one were to like brussels sprouts, I think this would be wonderful dish.  I nearly lost everything in my stomach trying to choke down my 4th bite.  Ok, so I don't like brussels sprouts.  What the hell do I do with the rest of the bag?  I'm thinking a sling-shot is in order here.

And I'm sure you are now going to astutely point out that bacon on top of veggies is not the most healthy way to cook them.  Well hey, at least I didn't wrap the bacon around a block of cheddar cheese and deep fry it like I wanted to.  Every little bit counts!

I was about to write about last night's dinner, but I don't want to spoil the "I'm a failure" mood.  I'm half way through the merlot.  An "I'm a success" might require more moderation, or acting like an adult, or something.   So let me wallow, enjoy my cheap merlot, and I'll add last night success story in a different post.

Cheers!

Rebuilding

Finally settled back in the US.  Its been a rather hectic and time-consuming ordeal.  As I'm sure you can guess by my lack of posting.  Eating in restaurants and staying in hotels for 2 months doesn't provide a lot of fodder for blogging about food.  That is, unless you want to hear about the 4th schnitzel that week, or Charlotte's extreme dislike of anything presented to her by a waitress.  So we'll by-pass that less than heart-warming section of our travels and come straight to the rebuilding phase.  Its a little daunting to move, especially when it involves leaving such a solid base of friends, community, and well, who can forget the pretty awesome food options in Europe.  But here we are, working on building a life in the DC area.  Of all the places to land, its pretty nice.  We're finding some routine and starting to explore a little.  And what's best is that I get to start cooking again.  So here's some of the first attempts:

Coffee
What?!  As a functional caffeine addict how can you even think of talking about making coffee?!  Well, apparently I am out of practice with using a French Press.  Couple that with barely sleeping due to a fussy two year old and an uncomfortable air mattress and it appears that my coffee making skills have suffered.  The result was highly caffeinated sludge.  Resembling the consistency of tar.  Or perhaps black colored caulk.  At one point I think it even growled at me.  And no, I did not throw it out.  I just got a spoon.

Oatmeal Pancakes
Please see my previous article about leavening.  Baking soda and baking powder are wonderful things.  And pancakes without them, especially when made with oatmeal that already has a pretty gluey, heavy consistency, came out the consistency of paving stones.  Flat, dense, hard, and a mottled brown.

So, come on over to my place in Alexandria.  Grab a glass of wine and a shovel.  Between the wine, the tar, and the new pavers we're ready for rebuilding.

Au Natural

Baking soda and baking powder are awesome.  From a chemists perspective.  Their ability to react in measured, timed increments with other baking ingredients all coming together to make a fluffy cloud of a cake is really pretty incredible.  And then talk to someone who grew up eating things without chemicals or preservatives.  All of sudden it isn't so cool.  So I took it on as a challenge to bake a cake without chemical rising agents.  Baking bread without chemical rising agents is easy.  Yeast.  Souffles rise without chemicals, but you also can't pack them in a cooler and eat them at a picnic.  So, after hours of research...... yes, I'm that sort of nerd, I spent hours online and in baking books researching frontier-era cake making...... I found that there are 2 standard non-chemical cakes.  Pound cake and Génoise.  


Ok, so one cake is a normal American butter cake and the other is a complicated Italian cake.  Which did I choose?  Yup, you guessed it, the Italian one that takes precise heating of sugar and eggs, while whipping them silly and then gently folding in a little bit of flour and baking for precisely 8 minutes and 23 seconds.  Then removing from the oven and immediately rolling into a jelly roll.  Of course to go inside the roll you have to have something creamy.  Hmmmmm.......  buttercream?  Too sweet.  Custard?  Doesn't stand up as well.  Jelly?  Sure, but still need something creamy.  (insert wild frantic search through fridge because I hadn't bothered to think about this until the day of, which of course was a Sunday and nothing was open.......  perhaps something with coconut milk and maple syrup, I have that......)  Big sigh of relief, I found some creme fraiche and mascarpone.  So, a slightly sweet-sour cream with bourbon vanilla resulted.  Combined with the jelly and sponge cake it wasn't too bad.


But it was missing something.  There was a lack of depth.  I think it needed to be brushed in some sort of alcohol.  That would have made it a little less dry.  Of course since this was the day after the fest, the last thing I wanted to smell was more alcohol.  By the way, who thought it was a good idea to open the rum last night?  Come on, fess up!  Anyway, next time I'll brush it with alcohol (but not rum), reduce the jelly, and add more creme fraiche to the icing.  But overall, it was a good cake.  Good ending to the easter brunch.


Here is an actual recipe for Génoise:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Plain-Genoise-353190 


Oh, and don't forget to whip the eggs like < insert inappropriate analogy of choice >