On my fourth and last day without Omaha, I decided to make something simple: chicken noodle soup. It's actually a very simple recipe, and I kinda wimped out and used store-bought chicken stock. But the base of onions, celery, and parsnips worked very well. Now that I've rediscovered the parsnip, I may never do a soup or casserole with carrots again. It's more savory and sweeter, it sautes much easier, and it's cheaper!

I tend to overburden my soups and this was no exception; it was more like a stew. I ladeled it into bowl, topped it with fresh bread straight out of my oven, and then covered it with slivered Gruyere cheese (oy, the food miles!) and went at it with my kitchen torch to melt and hold it all together.

Mmmm....

Tags: cooking, life
Current Mood: happy

( Raw meat. Cut to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of vegetarians. )I promised myself at least one meal this week where I went completely nuts, cooked absolutely for myself, and enjoyed the fruits of my labor. My experiment was to try and create the perfect environment for the Maillard reaction in steak, a chemical reaction in which the surface of the steak is covered in the caramelized sugars that give steak its characteristic smell and taste, but the core of the steak is heated just enough to kill any bacteria, and no hotter, thus giving my primitive man-brain as close a sensation to eating the raw flesh of the animal as possible and still be safe. This technique is known as Steak Sous-Vide. I bought, for this experiment, the best NY cut I could get from a local butcher.

( Many more pictures! )

Tags: cooking, geek
Current Mood: full
Current Music: Defense Mechanizms, Psychotic Biorhythms

As is typical of me on "vacation," I'm not getting much writing done. I'm not sure why. Yesterday was a day off for both kids from school, so I had them all day, running around the house, basically making a nuisance of themselves. The only real breaks we had all day were when Kouryou-chan had to go to dance class; she said that only half the kids showed up anyway because apparently some parents thought that if school was out dance class would be cancelled also. If only it worked that way.

I made risotto for dinner and invited lisakit over. Her roommate was supposed to come with, but apparently had something come up. The recipe, from left to right: 1/2 cup white wine, a bowl with 1 onion (chopped), 2 celery sticks (minced), and 1 parsnip (minced), two tbs olive oil, 1.5 cups risotto rice, and 2 oz proscuitto. You can't see the 6 cups of home-made turkey stock simmering on the stove, or the fresh French bread boule cooking in the oven. 1/2 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese is optional. The red wine is for the cook. Anyway, after heating the stock to a very low simmer, heat the olive oil at medium-high heat in a large, deep pan. Saute the vegetable for about 6 minutes, tossing in the proscuitto (if you're using it; you can emit it from the recipe without harm) about halfway through. Add the rice and stir for about a minute until it's completely coated in oil. Add the white wine and stir until it's completely gone, then begin adding the stock, about a half-cup at a time. Stir frequently (constantly is not necessary). Add more stock as the last half-cup is absorbed or boiled off. It'll take about 20 to 25 attentive minutes; the risotto should never be dry or soupy. Add salt and pepper to taste, always taking into account how salty your stock is (mine isn't very). After the rice has softened (but still has a tiny, al-dente core) and released much of its starch (which gives risotto that wonderful creamy texture), turn off the heat, stir in the cheese if you're using it, and serve immediately.

The bread was pretty good too. It was a straight-up French recipe, no preferment. It lacked the fine flavor of overnight bread, and it was very moist with little remarkable crust (I did a poor job of preheating the oven) but it was still lots better than store-bought, preservative-laden bread.

Lisa and I stayed up late after the kids went to bed, just generally talking and being friendly. It's a nice, low-key kind of friendship, although like most of my friendships it sometimes feel laden with landmines, hopefully I'm just not in the habit of seeding the ground with them out of my own neuroses. The girls were, as they always are, pains in the neck about getting to bed. This time their trick was "But I'm not done!" every time I knocked on the door to the bathroom and told them it was time to get out of the shower and into pyjamas. Nuisance creatures.

Tags: cooking, life
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Porcupine Tree, Wake as Gun II

Every once in a while, Omaha and I wimp out and buy one of those whole-roasted chickens from the local supermarket for dinner. Sometimes we section it and make pot pies out of it, or stir fry, or something else, using the ziplock bags full of veggies we've got lying around in the freezer. We always save the carcasses.

I now have two of those, plus some leftover turkey, boiling away gently on the stove. I'm preparing home-made stock for our Thanksgiving feast. Kouryou-chan thought my pointing out the turkey's heart "gross in a cool way."

The whole house smells wonderful.

Tags: cooking
Current Mood: hungry

"We need to use up stuff in the 'fridge."

A dangerous statement. Y'know what we ended up with? Chicken thighs baked in a Moroccan sauce of lemon juice, garlic, cumin, paprika, thyme, cinnamon, and redpepper, dished over couscous and sprinkled with fresh feta cheese for the protein, and for our vegetable: shredded blanched kale simmered with oatmeal and diced leftover pork, all on a plate with crisp quick-baked thin-sliced zucchini.

Woah. Yum. Recipes:

• Baked chicken thighs in Moroccan sause.
• Kale with oatmeal and bacon

Kouryou-chan didn't like any of it, except the couscous. She didn't buy it even when I tried doing Gusteau's accent.

I've also been enjoying 1554, a delicious beer from the New Belgium beer company, the group that makes Fat Tire. It's heavy flavor paired well with the rich sauces in this recipe. I've really tried to start eating locally, and while New Belgium isn't really local (it's in Colorado) it's better than Stella Artois, which must have ridiculous food miles: it comes from old Belgium.

Tags: cooking, recipe
Current Mood: full

So, this evening, completely stressed to the max, I decided to do something about it. I went by the local butcher shop and bought myself a 12-oz NY steak. I stopped by the daycare to pick up Kouryou-chan (Yamaraashi-chan is staying with her mother), and we went by the supermarket for milk and eggs, and while there I bought a huge potato and a head of broccoli.

Kouryou-chan spent the next hour and a half reading to herself while I made an authentic slow-baked potato, trimmed and steamed the broccoli with minced garlic, a splash of olive oil, some coarsely ground sea salt, and a few red pepper flakes, and then broiled the steak in a pre-heated grill pan at 500°F four minutes on one side, three minutes on the other, with nothing more than a pinch or two of that sea salt. Kouryou-chan got by requesting leftover penne and home-made sauce, but she's a pasta fiend so that was okay.

Oh, dinner was bliss. I don't do that much. Even a 12oz prime cut is nine dollars, and the potato takes a long time. But between starting the potato and everything else, I cleaned many kitchen things. I ate the steak, sometimes slathering on horseradish just because, sometime enjoying my dead cow just the way it was. I put two tablespoons of butter and one of sour cream on the potato. I drank half a glass of pretty good wine (47 Pound Cock merlot, California, 2003).

I am now very relaxed, mostly from carbs, fat, and protein. I spent an hour in the kitchen, which is my meditation spot. I feel much, much better. Kouryou-chan and I are going to have ice cream in a little bit.

Tags: cooking, life
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Kouryou-chan singing Let It Snow

Last night, I tried to make a miso soup with daikon and tofu, but it didn't work. The fish broth that I used was salty, and so was the miso. I can't make the miso less salty so I guess the only solution is to try and find a low-salt fish broth. Admittedly I didn't look around, just two grocery stores, but I'm really fond of the Better Than Broth brand, and they don't make low-salt variants. They've been known to like restaurant-bought miso soups. Anyone have any good tips for making a miso even the kids will eat?

Tags: cooking
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: NPR, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me