Pantry Pasta

I was talking to my roommate the other day about how I manage to cook so often. He likes preparing food and likes the idea of cooking for himself, but seems to lack the follow through. While there are basic recipes and methods you can learn to make cooking easier, I realized over the course of our conversation that I really like the process of cooking. I like that it's methodical and creative (and delicious). I even- increasingly- like the process of organizing and cleaning up after myself. I often recline on the sofa after a meal and survey the sparkling kitchen* from my position of satiated repose. But assuming you have that drive to cook and merely lack the will to go to the grocery store (this winter has brought about four day stretches during which I don't leave my apartment), this is a good recipe building on scraps.

The base of the dish was a bundle of chard stems I saved from Saturday. I had eaten braised chard stems before and it seemed they would cook down nicely to accompany pasta. I had a can of chickpeas, a shallot, some garlic and a bit of roasted red pepper (about half a pepper). As you remember (perhaps) I had lemon and parsley from a fish dish earlier in the week and I always have parmesean cheese on hand. I also always have wine around (a professional hazard) but broth or water would work fine.



I started out chopping everything up. I put on some water to boil and heated up a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a pan. I sauteed the shallot and garlic for a minute and then added the chard stems. After they were bright green on the edges I added the chickpeas and red pepper. I think that chopped canned tomatoes would have been even better in this and had a similar aesthetic affect, but I used what I had.



I added salt and black and red pepper (I love my little red pepper mill!), about a quarter cup of white wine and a squeeze of tomato paste. Then I covered the pan and turned down the heat. While the stems were braising themselves into an edible softness, I grated lots of cheese and a bit of lemon zest. I also chopped up some parsley pretty fine.



The trick at this point is to make sure that the veggies cook enough. Really, over cooking is not going to happen. The stems are very tough and have a sort of grassy bitterness to them. The chickpeas will also get softer and break apart a bit as cooking continues. I put (about 3/4 cup dried?) pasta into the salted water once the greens were pretty soft. When it was tender I drained it (saving a bit of the water) and put it right into the pan with the stems and chickpeas. Then I added the grated and chopped things and a bit of the pasta water and mixed it all together. That's all.



This dish made enough for two hungry people (or one hungry person who is happy not to have to make lunch plans for tomorrow). I grated more cheese on at the end, because it's technically a good idea when consuming that much fiber (whole wheat pasta, chickpeas and chard stems? try to contain your colon envy). I was very happy to have the brightness of the lemon zest and the freshness of the parsley to balance the richer braised flavor of the other vegetables. It took about an hour, start to finish, but there was nothing especially complicated. It's a balanced, satisfying (and vegetarian!) meal.

*This is poetic license. I live with three other people. The kitchen is never that clean.

I thought I was your fish cake!**

Assiduous devotes of my Internet presence will remember that I have a particular fondness for making fritters with leftover fish. Over the weekend S and I cooked some Shad (so delicious! I'd never tried it before). We just broiled it for a couple minutes with butter and lemon. The fish was super tasty, but I just wasn't jazzed about eating a plain fillet leftover. Somehow the texture of reheated fish just doesn't appeal. And so last night I put together this easy dinner of fish cakes and salad.

Fish Cakes a la Rose

This can be done with any leftover fish. I've used sea bass, imitation crab meat and even swordfish. The rice works well as a binding agent and, conveniently, it is often my starch of choice for a fish dinner. You can get crazy with adding veggies, but don't go too over the top or you will ruin your texture.

Some leftover fish (we'll say 8 oz?)
Some leftover rice (we'll say 1/3 cup?)
3 Scallions (diced)
1 Clove garlic (a small one, minced)
Grated zest of half a lemon
2 tbs. chopped parsley
Bread crumbs*
An egg
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil suitable for frying

-Flake the fish so it is in manageable chunks. If you're using something denser it might make sense to dice, but generally all cooked fish can be broken up with a fork.

-Mix in the rice, scallions, garlic and lemon zest.

-Adjust seasoning by tasting first, then adding salt and pepper (the fish is already seasoned, so you don't want to go overboard).

-Mix in the egg. The mixture will be wet and uniform.

-Form into balls of about 2 tbs. each. Flatten the balls into patties and drag each side through bread crumbs.

-Chill formed patties in the fridge for about 30 mins. (this step can be skipped, but it does really help the fish cakes stay together in the pan).

-Heat up some olive oil and fry the cakes.

-Serve with salad and maybe hot sauce. I made a little dressing for the cakes with three parts low fat yogurt, one part Dijon mustard, one part mayonnaise and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper.



The recipe made five fish cakes. Though I have to warn you, I measured absolutely nothing.

*I hate setting up my food processor for small tasks, so I made the bread crumbs using the end of a loaf of sandwich bread and a box grater. It was pretty successful.

**You are all so lucky I didn't call this post "Hanging Shad" or "Not Too Shaddy!" Additionally, I am the reigning queen of asterisks.

***This would be very easy to do gluten free by dredging the cakes in a rice (or whatever) flour.

****(Record postscript use!) Shad has tiny bones! Last night when I was flossing (maybe 4 hours after I finished dinner) I found a bone lodged between my teeth. So be careful!

Simple Valentine's Dinner*

Well, at the risk of being annoyingly food blog-y and annoyingly relationship smug, this is the very simple Valentine's Day meal I prepared with my Special Person. The idea was that the most romantic thing to do on Valentine's Day is spend time together and since SP (oh God, that's really awful) works the very worst shift imaginable (9pm to 6am), our window of time together was somewhat small. Going to a restaurant was out since I am a high-strung, demanding patron on a normal day and Valentine's crowds and menus always breed incidents. We talked about the menu in advance and cooked together and it all just went very smoothly. It's really a great idea for a date night at any time of year.

I began to prep a bit the night before. Dessert was a sort of special surprise. In accordance with our theme, it couldn't be fancy or too rich. Chocolate is the obvious V-Day flavor (though does anyone actually feel erotic stirrings from eating chocolate?). But it couldn't be over the top or S would fall asleep after we ate and miss work and generally ruin his life forever (which would be a terrible thing to inflict on a loved one on Valentine's Day). I saw this recipe and decided that it would be easy enough to be-Valentine it by forming the dough into a heart shaped log before cutting the cookies. It seemed a bit rough at first, but the cookies looked great in the end.


Cookies on the sheet.

They were sort of dry tasting (a bit overcooked- whoops!), so I melted a very small amount of bittersweet chocolate and smeared it across the top of each one. In the end this was delicious, but terribly rich.



During the day I had to work a bit, but I put together a short playlist of songs for our meal. I also got some mustard and ice cream that S particularly likes. I share my apartment with three other people, so it's not exactly the most romantic mise en scene but I spruced it up a bit and even managed to figure out candles and cloth napkins.


I am aware the the pet names written on our glasses only increase the appearance of smugness. Sorry.

S came over in the afternoon and since it was a gloriously warm day we went for a walk to get the chicken and some bread. Our destination was one of those fancy Brooklyn food stores and we impulse bought two kinds of cheese (sign number two that this was not going to be the lightest meal imaginable). The main event of the evening was a simple roast chicken. One of my roommates had alerted me to this very extraordinary recipe a few weeks earlier.** It was divine. And shockingly easy. I decided to risk one very small substitution and switched the thyme for tarragon, (because tarragon is really the sexiest herb, right?) but we basically just salted the bird and stuck her in the oven for an hour.



While our chicken crackled away we broke off pieces of french bread an spread them with our cheeses- a sort of domestic camembert and a very spicy blue. As the sultry scent of crisping skin filled the air, we danced around the kitchen. Sigh. It was really just so much nicer than any Valentine's day has been before. And then we got to eat!


She was so beautiful. I swell up with pride just looking at her.

We decided that side dishes were unnecessary and just had some simple greens to satisfy my manic need for vegetables.


I wouldn't say it's a flaw exactly, but it is sort of sad that S and I both like the legs best. I was eyeing the other one for lunch the next day.

As you might have guessed, bread and cheese followed by delicious, salt-covered chicken left us feeling pretty full. But we managed to squeeze in dessert.


Strawberry ice cream from Van Leeuwen.

We had seltzer water and a bottle the Goose Island Madame Rose (pretty great name!) rather than wine. This was mostly because S couldn't have much wine before working, although the pairing ended up being quite nice. The beer could use a bit more time in the bottle, but it has a really pleasing sourness in the finish. Apparently it is cask aged with sour cherries.

And that's all! I mean, it took a long time to explain, but basically this meal requires about 20 minutes of active time, tastes great and feels special. And if we hadn't bought the cheese the whole thing would have cost about $20 (Brooklyn ice cream is pricey!).

*So I'm gonna write about food here more lately, I think. Not because anyone reads it. And certainly not because the Internet needs another person writing about what they cook (in their Brooklyn apartment- oh gag!). But because it gives me the sense that I am doing something.

**Guys, can I just take a moment to express that, based solely on this recipe, Thomas Keller deserves every bit of praise people give him?

Salt in Your Pocket

Año Nuevo is huge here. Right now the number of people in the city is in the process of doubling, creating traffic scenes that look daunting even to a native Bostonian. They say that the fireworks display at midnight (or apparently somewhere around then, Chileans aren't so bothered by punctuality) is one of the biggest and most impressive in the world. Although I can stay out pretty late by New York standards (I'm no stranger to six am), the party here apparently goes until eight or nine. When Maca and Caro told me this I nearly moved to show them the gray hair I found this summer. I feel old and tired just thinking about it.

In addition to fireworks and dancing and drinking on the crowded streets, the celebration of New Years here involves lots of traditions. As Nike pointed out it seems to be the opposite of what we're used to, Christmas is no big deal and New Year's has lots of significance. All of the traditions have to do with luck in the New Year. They range from familiar to deeply strange.

Yellow Underpants No one has mentioned why exactly, but it appears to be very important to wear yellow underpants on New Years. The street vendors have had stacks of them laid out on blankets all week. Judging by the styles I saw for sale, it seems that the tradition applies mostly to women. Although perhaps gents also don lacy thongs to celebrate.

Eat Lentils You're supposed to eat lentils without salt before midnight. Apparently this will bring wealth in the New Year. Conveniently lentils are one the foods I can afford, so it couldn't hurt to try... Do you think cooking them with sausage would be cheating?

Walk Around the Block With a Suitcase This is supposed to make all your travel dreams come true. It seems like it could be sort of goofy looking.

Eat Twelve Grapes Apparently this tradition originated in Spain. No one seems to be sure why, but it might have started with a royal proclamation intended to help the grape industry. Sounds a bit hard to believe, but ultimately pretty simple.

Put Salt in Your Pocket In your left, front pocket to be exact. I didn't quite understand why. But no other pocket will do.

Hug Someone of the Opposite Sex at Midnight This seems similar to kissing someone you want to be with for the rest of the year at midnight. It doesn't seem to have the same romantic connotations. For example, I am hoping to hug a six month old baby at midnight. I really like babies.

So I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. I'm going to nap now. It looks like I have a long night ahead of me. Happy New Year, everyone!

Currying Flavor

So the Chilean diet has some quirks. Or maybe it has absolutely no quirks at all. The food here is definitely not bad. But it's certainly different and not in a particularly exciting way. I like the two national street foods: giant, calzone-like empanadas and completos, which are hot dogs covered in avocado, tomato and mayonnaise. But generally the intensity of flavor around here is pretty low. Culinarily, the most exciting thing is being able to buy a kilogram of strawberries and two perfect avocados for about two dollars. Many can attest to my abiding love for strawberry-avocado salads, but like anything, one gets sick of them after a while. Especially when one is consuming strawberries by the kilo to avoid spoilage.

So today I decided to branch out a bit and make a curry. I wouldn't say that curry is a staple of my repertoire, but I feel comfortable making it. The nice thing about curry is you can make it with anything as long as you can find curry powder (or paste, but they don't even have milk in the refrigerated section of the grocery store here). When I began my adventure I wasn't sure I'd be able to find the powder. But sure enough, it was on the shelf in the international section of the grocery store, tucked behind some soy sauce. I also bought the brownest looking rice (it was not actually brown rice), some chicken legs (easy) and a can of what I thought was coconut milk. It was actually coconut cream, unfortunately. Which turned out to be really delicious and I ate some spread on a piece of bread as dessert.

Veggies were of course no problem. Cauliflower, strangely awesome potatoes, carrots, peppers... my roommate even had a ginger root stashed in the freezer she let me use (thanks, Nike!). So the curry was coming along nicely. My other roommate demonstrated the completely foreign can opener (thanks, Rodrigo!- It actually seems to just be a blade you use to cut open cans). I sort of just added gobs of coconut cream and lots of water where I would normally use coconut milk. And honestly it wasn't bad. The curry powder had a nice kick. It was definitely better than the curry powder I bought from the bodega on fourth avenue in Park Slope. All in all, I think I'll be able to figure out how to approximate all the varieties of foods I have been missing. Maybe next I'll try chili. Because puns make things more delicious.

The Truth About Food/Love

So honestly, I think I haven't been eating enough. It's not conscious or purposeful it's just that eating is sort of depressing alone. And cooking is even more so. My mother might fly down to Chile on the wings of concern when she reads this, but I am just sort of always hungry and never want to eat.

I think most of you can attest to the fact that I have a pretty good appetite. I love food and always have. But even though I have been cooking for myself for years now, I really hate cooking for one. And the pleasure of a meal- a glass of wine, the fruits of an hour's labor, the beginning/end/pause of a day that meals represent- are just lacking on ones own. It's slightly better to eat alone in a restaurant. There's a formality that's comforting. There are people at least. Waiters, a cook definitely. But honestly I am not on the kind of budget that can afford restaurant meals often. So it looks like I'll have to find a boyfriend.

I guess it's sort of awful. I feel like generally I am in a very single state of mind. Woe-betide the man who I'll ensnare in my macaroni and cheese net, for surely I am far too selfish at this point in my life to regard another's feelings gently. But at least he'll be well fed. We both will.

Rose Reviews: Diet Leche Culturada, Sabor Ciruela

So fans of this blog's archives (or long time readers) might remember my reviews of Dutch food stuffs from my time in the Netherlands. Good news! My trip to the grocery store today yielded my first Chilean food product for review. It is worth noting that Chile gets sort of a bad wrap for its cuisine. As far as I can tell that is because it lacks the intensity of flavor of it's neighbors (mostly in terms of spiciness of seasoning). But when compared to Dutch cuisine, the culinary living is easy down in this hemisphere. I mean there is just so much affordable, fresh seafood and produce. Desserts and drinks tend to be a bit sweeter than I like them, but really there's very little to complain about.

Unfortunately that assessment does not extent to packaged and processed foods. When deciding to make the purchase in question I knew I was being adventurous. It seems that yogurt here tends to come in pourable jug form more often than spoonable container form. So rather than the Yogurt Batida Sabor Fresa I had tried earlier this week, I decided to branch out a bit and try this fat free, plum flavored, cultured milk. They were right next to one another. The bottles are the same shape. But on the inside... Basically it Leche Culturada has the consistency of milk. But with a vaguely coating, grainy sort of texture. And the flavor! Maybe there was an element of plum there somewhere... but as a person who has been known to consume upwards of twenty stone fruits in the height of the season, this tasted more like prunes mixed with maple syrup. Ugh.

Recipes: Fage

So for a little while now I have been using 2% fat Fage (the Greek yogurt) as a substitute for creamy fatty things that would turn a normal meal into a serious undertaking of cholesterol (mayo, sour cream, ice cream, creme fraiche, etc.). It's great in dips and dressings especially, I find. I have recently developed two delicious new applications for Fage:

Berry "Sundae"

The other night I really wanted ice cream, but really didn't want to put on pants and shoes and a jacket to walk to 7-11 in the rain. I was working with things I had in the kitchen.

1 cup strawberries
3/4 cup Fage 2%
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
Squeeze bottle of agave nectar (to taste)

Dice the strawberries and put them in a bowl. Grate lemon zest directly onto the strawberries (make sure you spread it out, it's powerful stuff). Top with Fage. Toast the walnuts in a dry skillet for a couple minutes and dice (you can dice then toast and it might be easier). Squeeze agave nectar directly onto berries and yogurt (this is the "fudge" or "caramel" or "strawberry syrup" element, so don't be stingy). Top the whole thing with toasted nuts.

This was sort of a small meal-sized portion. You could play with ratios but I liked that there were chunks of berry and nut in every bite. Richard and I shared by passing the bowl back and forth, but if you find it's more civilized to split it into two portions that could be nice too. I would be very interested to try variations on the type of nut and berry used.



BATS

I have long felt that adding avocado is a sure way to turn any sandwich into a luxury (this might not be true of a fluffernutter which is already sort of a luxury). When applied to the already scrumptious BLT, this fatty fruit has a sort of transcendent affect. It can, however, compound the already complicated structural challenges of this sandwich. But no longer. In this application the yogurt allows the avocado to act as an adhesive. It also replaces the mayonnaise (though you could certainly add mayo if you like).

2 pieces of your favorite sandwich bread, toasted
3 or 4 pieces of bacon, fried to desired crispiness
1/2 tomato, sliced thin
several leaves of baby spinach
1/4+ of a ripe avocado, diced
1/4 cup of Fage 2%
salt

Mash the avocado into the yogurt with a fork. Chunks are not a problem, but you don't want them to be too big. Add salt and mix in to taste. Spread on one side of each slice of bread. Assemble sandwich with remaining ingredients (I will not presume to prescribe whether your bacon touches your tomato, spinach or both). Enjoy!

Recommendations:

1) Goulash night at Cafe Steinhof: What a deal! Every Monday this Austrian restaurant in Park Slope serves generous bowls of goulash for only six bucks. They also have fried trout for same price but it's a little less reliable. Also they have Gaffel Kolsch on tap and I think that's one of my favorite beers ever. It's on the corner of 14th St. and 7th Ave.

2)No Country for Old Men: I admit that I covered my eyes a lot, but the movie is really great. It's very suspenseful and has an awesome ending, but the performances are really worth going for. Also, wide angle lenses never looked so good.

3)The Time of the Wolf: This movie is intensely tense if that even means anything. The director, Michael Haneke is incredibly adept at creating a narrative with convincing characters but not so much extra stuff that you get bogged down in the details. There's a really interesting analysis of his work in last month's Harper's. Also the young woman who plays the daughter is incredibly good and nuanced and beyond her years as they say. It's really worth seeing.

Things I Will Miss: Comestibles

So, I do a lot of complaining about Dutch cuisine. And while there are many things I will be glad to never think about again (raw herring? those pate salads? unrefrigerated sausages?), I have grown quite attatched to certain foods and beverages that just won't be available to me in New York.

1. Stroopwaffles Should any of you find yourself in Amsterdam at some point it is imperitive that you try the fresh, warm stroopwaffels at the Albert Cuyp Market. A treasure. Warm, gooey, a little cinnamon-ey.... and so, so delicious. I am planning to have my last one *sniff* on Thursday.

2. Vla It's so much better than pudding! And I'm really not sure why. It comes in milk-style cartons and you could practically drink it. Maybe it seems healthier, or at least higher in calcium than a Snack Pac. If you get the chance, try the "dubble vla" (double vla) in chocolate/vanilla. Like Hoodsie cups of our youth! Only in near-liquid form!

3. Cheap Wine Do you remember that time we bought wine for $1.99 in New York? Lost Vineyards was the brand? No? You can't remember? Because the vile substance (which might have been cleverly packaged fermented Welch's grape juice) erased your memory of the evening? Well, over here it's a different story. While it's usually more satisfying to go for a 3 or 4 Euro bottle (OMG the Aliwen Sauvignon Blanc is just the most delicious 13% alcohol white wine of all time), you can easily drink the 1.89 grocery store Rioja.

4. Cheese It's just. so. good.