Recipes

Okay, we all know about Food Porn, a habit engaged by several younger generations. NZ Muse, for example, is famously given to musing over spectacular food. So — at least pre-bébé — is Revanche at A Gai Shan Life…note the preponderance of food images in this travel post. Little of it, alas, is dietetic. And of course the beloved Asian Pear is a master of the restaurant review.

So. Check out this noon’s Diet Food Porn…

What I really (really!) wanted was some delicious little bay scallops soaked in butter & wine and dropped exquisitely over a plate of pasta. But…

Yes. But. This morning I hit the low 134’s (134.2!!) on the scale, down from 136.9 and headed for the goal of about 132.5.

Pasta? No… Don’t think so. That would mean tomorrow’s weight would be pushing 136 again.

Those scallops were gonna have to go over a salad. Darn it. Here’s how it all came down:

 You need:

• frozen or fresh scallops of  whatever description (I used frozen bay scallops)
• cumin, powdered or seeds that you’ve pulverized in a blender or old coffee grinder
• one or two cloves of garlic, chopped finely or minced
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley
• salad greens (mâche, in my case, because it keeps forever)
• little green onions, chopped
• a tomato or two, with flavor
• bottled salad addenda, such as hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, whatever)
• various fresh veggies, such as carrots, radishes, thin crispy spring asparagus, whatEVER
• a fresh lime (or two) or a fresh lemon
• decent olive oil
• a tablespoon or more of butter
• crumbled feta cheese, ad lib

Mound up the greens and fresh veggies (including the green onions) on a plate, having cut larger items into bite-size pieces. Add pieces of whatever comes in a can or bottle. Sprinkle  some olive oil over the mound.

If necessary defrost the scallops by soaking briefly in cold water. Dry scallops well on paper or fabric towels. Sprinkle generously with cumin.

Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic. Add the scallops. Stir or toss around as they cook. Add parsley. When the shellfish look cooked (they get kind of white and firm; do NOT overcook!), squeeze one juicy lime or half a juicy lemon over them. Stir around to deglaze the pan.

Pour this directly out of the pan over the salad greens/veggies.

Top with a little salt and pepper. Sprinkle some cheese over this. (Feta is good; you could also manage with Parmesan or maybe with some kind of blue cheese.)

Pour wine. Take salad and wine to table. Enjoy.

Okay, I’m afraid I just have never been able to work myself to such a high pitch of foodie/health nut righteousness that I could say I actually LIKE kale…before this.

The other day SDXB and I visited a Whole Foods, where I found a bunch of beautiful purple curly leaves. No clue on the bin as to what it was or how much it cost — your whole paycheck, presumably. What the heck. It was so gorgeous I figured if I hated it I could put the rest of it in a flower vase and set it in the middle of the dining table.

Turns out the stuff is a variety of curly kale. And, properly prepared…boy is it good to eat!!!!!!!

The following is a recipe I knocked off from the 1970s-vintage Laurel’s Kitchen and then perverted to my carnivorous tastes.

• Head of kale, chopped
• Small onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped or minced
• Enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a pan
• About a teaspoon, give or take, of cumin
• 1 cup, give or take, high-quality boxed or canned chopped tomatoes
• A tablespoon, give or take, of tomato paste
• A fistful or two of frozen peas
• A  small amount of cooked or raw meat (grilled chicken or steak, raw steak, whatEVER), optional
• If you choose raw beef, possibly a wee bit of Worcester or soy sauce, depending on availability and mood
• Maybe a dash of cheap red wine, if you have any around
• Maybe some pine nuts, if you have any of those.
• Or…who knows. Maybe a few roasted salted pistachios. Or not.

To do this in a single pan, get out a Dutch-oven size pot and place inside of it one of those gadgets to hold veggies while they’re being steamed. Failing that, try a colander or sieve that will fit inside the pot when the lid is on tightly.

Slice the meat, if you’re using it, into 1/4-inch slices or so. If you’re using raw beef, sprinkle some Worcestershire or soy sauce over it and let it sit while you start cooking the kale.

Place enough water in the pot to come up to the bottom of whatever steaming gadget you’re using. Bring the water to a boil; then turn the heat down to about medium or medium-high. Fill the steaming gadget with the chopped kale; cover the pan and allow to steam for eight or ten minutes, or until the kale is soft but not limp.

Once you reach this stage, lift the steamer out and set it in a clean kitchen sink. Pour off the water and wipe the inside of the pan dry.

Place the pan back on the heat and pour in a little olive oil, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook the chopped onion in it until the onion is transparent and on the verge of browning. Add cumin and stir in well as the onion is cooking.

If you’re using any raw meat, stir-fry that into the onions as they’re reaching the browning stage. If you have leftover cooked meat, you can toss that in at any time during the cooking process.

Add the garlic and stir to start cooking. After another minute or two, add the canned or boxed tomatoes and the tomato paste. Stir these into the onions and garlic. If you’re using leftover cooked meat, add that now. Add a splash of red wine, if desired. Stir and allow to cook for another couple of minutes.

Stir in the steamed kale. Add the frozen peas and stir those in. Cook until the peas are warmed through but still bright green. Add pine nuts or pistachios, as available.

And there you have it!

Very good with Parmesan, or topped with a dollop of yogurt.

Image: Curly kale. Rasbak. GNU Free Documentation License.

Spinach: weirdly, I love it!

Especially I love it prepared in the Julia Child mode. Julia would quickly parboil a few fistfuls of fresh spinach — dump it in boiling water and then forthwith pour it into a colander or strainer. Then she said to wrap it in paper towels or a clean white cotton towel and wring the water out of it; then toss it on the cutting board and chop it up. Next, melt a ton of butter in a pan, add the spinach, cover, and allow to sit over very low heat while you go on about your business preparing the rest of the meal, at least 20 minutes or half an hour. Keep the heat pretty darn low, especially if you’ll be preoccupied any longer than 20 or 30 minutes; maybe stir now and again. Season with salt & pepper.

Well, heaven help us, the result is mind-boggling: the spinach more or less absorbs the butter so you end up with something indescribably buttery and delicious.

I’ve learned you can do that, much faster and with far less work, by using a good brand of frozen spinach. Get either the leaf or the chopped variety, as you please. Melt butter, pour the frozen spinach into the pan, stir around a bit until it defrosts, cover, and continue as above.

Now this is good enough…but the other day I accidentally learned how to make it IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE!

Craving some creamed spinach, I stuck my head in the fridge and discovered, not surprisingly, no cream. But there was a giant package of Costco yogurt. Heh heh…here’s how this came down:

Acquire:

1/4 of a fresh onion
a handful of pine nuts (probably optional)
a package of frozen spinach
a cube of butter
a little nutmeg
a little cumin
no-fat or  low-fat plain yogurt
a large saucepan or small frying pan, with lid

Chop the onion. Doesn’t take very much. I had a red onion on hand and used about 1/4 of it. You could add garlic, too, if you wanted.

Melt about 1/4 to 1/3 of the cube of butter over medium heat. Gently cook the onion and pine nuts in till the onion has softened nicely, maybe even begun to caramelize, and the pine nuts are starting to brown. If you’re using garlic, chop or mince the garlic and add it toward the end of this process. Stir now and again.

Open the package of frozen spinach and dump in as much as you think you can eat, which is likely to be more than you expect because this is amazingly delicious. Do not defrost it first. Do not cook it first. Just dump it in frozen. Stir around as it defrosts.

Add another 1/4 cube of butter. Oh, maybe even more, if that makes you feel happy. Sprinkle the spinach with a little nutmeg. Add a little cumin — more cumin than nutmeg, I’d say. Not a lot — maybe 1/2 teaspoon or so. Just sprinkle to taste. Stir. Cover. Turn heat to “low.” Go away.

Prepare the rest of your dinner. Occasionally check on the spinach and stir a bit, but otherwise leave it covered and simmering away.

Right before you’re ready to serve it up, turn off the heat. Remove the pan from the burner. Give it a second to stop bubbling, if it’s doing so. Then add yogurt to taste. I probably put in about a quarter to half a cup. Stir. Add a little salt and a little fresh-ground pepper.

And serve it up.

This turns out to be bizarrely delicious. Why, I could not say. But it is truly extremely good.

Image: Victor M. Vicente Selvas. Public domain.

This is too good. Well, for us survivors of the Lower Pleistocene, it’s too, too good.  🙂 Today’s New York Times reports breathlessly on the newest discovery among American home cooks, the rise of craft popcorn. Hilarious!

Do you realize that today, this very day, you can spend your children’s patrimony at Whole Foods on a package of flinty “heirloom” popcorn guaranteed to litter the bottom of your pan with duds?

It gets better.

Do you realize that Americans have so lost touch with reality that the Times, one of our country’s last surviving publications of record, feels called upon to explain, in exquisite detail, how to pop corn in a pan (remember those?) on top of your stove?

No kidding: step by step instructions on pouring raw popcorn seeds into a puddle of oil and setting the mess over a hot burner. They wrap it up with hints on how to butter your popcorn and suggest adding rosemary, sage, hot sauce, soy sauce, or grated ginger to “add character.”

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Okay, for those of us who haven’t seen a popped kernel of corn outside of a movie theater in the past few decades, here’s the real old-fashioned CHEAP and INFINITELY BETTER TASTING way to make real popcorn.

First, disconnect the microwave.

Then, buy yourself a bottle of Orville Redenbacher’s. It tastes better than the generic stuff that comes in bags, leaves fewer duds, and believe me it will not cost what WF will charge you for that organic, artisanally grown, non-GMO, never hybridized, dudley popcorn revival.

Find a decent-size pot with a lid. A Dutch oven will do nicely, but any pot that will hold three or four quarts calls out for popping corn. While you’re at it, find a little pan to melt butter in.

Find some sort of vegetable oil: corn oil, safflower oil, olive oil, or, if you’re feeling effete, coconut oil will all do the job.

Find some butter. Find some salt of the finely ground variety.

Assemble these items. Then…

1. Melt the butter in the small pan. Set it aside.
2. Pour enough oil into the larger pot to just cover the bottom. Turn a stove burner to medium-high (gas is ideal, but you can struggle along with electric…). Place the pan atop the fire for a few seconds, long enough to heat up the oil (if you’re using olive oil, make this process every short, as olive oil quickly denatures over excessive heat).
3. Sprinkle enough popcorn into the pan to form a single layer covering the entire bottom of the pan.
4. Slap the lid on.
5. Stand back for a minute or two. Listen for the sound of corn popping.
6. When it sounds like typhoon rain banging on a tin roof, pick up the pan (use hot pads if necessary) and give it a few vigorous shakes. This will prevent individual kernels from scorching. Place it back on the heat. You may need to do this a couple of times.
7. When the frantic popping subsides to just a couple of pops a minute, turn off the  heat. If you have an electric stove,  promptly remove the pan from the hot burner.
8. Wait until the last pop is popped, lest you get whacked on the nose by a late-popping piece of corn. Then remove the lid.
9. Dribble the melted butter over the hot popcorn. Stir with a spoon or spatula to mix evenly.
10. Sprinkle granulated salt over the buttered popcorn. Stir (etc.). Do not add sugar. Do not add honey. For godsake do not add corn syrup. Do not add any exotic ingredients.
11. (Optional) Pour an ice-cold beer.
12. Dish up popcorn and and carry popcorn and beer to the nearest sofa. Enjoy.

Infinitely better than the bagged stuff you stick in the microwave.

Finally beginning to unwind, after two or three stress-inducing weeks, aggravated by the fact that this week the ditzy annoying chores just don’t seem to want to  let go of me!

Monday, I thought Aaaahhhh! A whole day to myself in which to do MY thing!

Well. No. Meet with client half the day.

Tuesday, I thought Aaaaahhh! A whole day to myself in which to do MY thing!

Not quite. Add up billable hours, having been unforgivably lâche about keeping track of time and charges. Documenting $1500 worth of my time consumes five hours of unpaid time. Nice.

Quarrel with annoyoing Semi-Demi-Ex-Boyfriend and in doing so announce there’s no way I’m spending Thursday evening with him and current New Girlfriend, so there and leave me alone.

Observe that blood pressure is hovering in the lower stratosphere.

Wednesday, I thought Aaaaahhh! A whole day to myself in which to do MY thing!

Uh huh. Run from pillar to post. Deal with Yard Dude, who announces he’s showing up right this minute with a ton and a half of quarter-minus gravel and wishes to spread it. Supervise this. Race to choir, not having cooked the dog meat I carelessly left out on the counter. Cook dog meat upon returning around 9:15 p.m., while working on new version of maps to send to graphic artist for novel.

(YES!! NOVEL!)

Learn that Sunday is pick-a-puppy day in Wittman. Explain to breeder that Sunday is not good: choir all morning, and then a huge full-choir Evensong chivaree requiring elaborate rehearsal to which we are asked to bring enough potluck to feed 23 guest choir members. I will not have time to make the two-hour round-trip between here and Wittman between the end of Sunday morning service and the 4:00 p.m. choir call. Too bad, says she: you want dibs on the pup, you show up Monday. Otherwise you can drag in on the 15th. God damn.

Overcook meat while doing English-major graphic artistry. Write long explanation of what I thought I was trying to do and how I screwed it up, addressed to a guy who thinks in three dimensions, not in the long straight railroad-track lines of the highly verbal. Pray to god he has some idea what my excuse is. Fall into the sack at 11 p.m.

Thursday, roll out of the sack at 5:30 a.m.. Absolutely positively do NOT think Aaaaahhh! A whole day to myself in which to do MY thing!

Don’t. Be. Ridiculous.

Fly to Scottsdale with business associate, there to chair networking group meeting. We stop by Sprouts on the way home, my having inspired her with the story of … yes, indeed: the most INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS, MEAT-FREE, GLUTEN-FREE all-in-one hot dish that I invented last week and that, as we carpooled eastward, I realized I could take to the potluck on Sunday — in a slow cooker.

So it’s like this: Eggplant, lots of onion, and incredible packaged tomatoes.

First off, if you can, get your hands on some boxed tomatoes by an outfit called Pomí. The Sprouts here has taken to carrying these products. They’re expensive, they’re worth every penny. If you can find them, just buy the best canned tomatoes you can find, preferably low-salt (good luck with that! 😉 ). Then the basic stuff you’ll need is a nice fresh eggplant or two, a good onion, a clove or two of garlic, a sprinkle of feta cheese, and maybe some carrots or celery. Or both. Other stuff is optional: flavorings, extra veggies like spinach or kale, and whatEVER.

You need:

• Eggplant
• Onion
• Garlic
• Powdered cumin
• Dried herbs (I used herbes de Provence, but fines herbes or just about any other flavor you like will be fine)
• Carrots
• Celery, if desired
• Anise, if desired
• And the like, if desired
• Mushrooms, if desired
• Salt & pepper
• Feta cheese
• Olive oil

Slice the eggplant length-wise into pieces about 1/2 to 1 inch thick. Sprinkle each side of the slices with salt. Take a rack out of the oven and set it across the kitchen sink. Place the salted eggplant slices on the rack and let sit for 1/2 hour to an hour or so, depending on your mood and schedule.

Roughly chop an onion and chop a couple cloves of garlic. Pour a little olive oil in a wide frying pan and gently cook the onion over low-medium heat until it’s soft and beginning to caramelize. As the onion is cooking, also add cut-up carrot, celery, or other aromatic vegetables. Flavor to taste with cumin and herbs. Add the garlic toward the end of this process.

Then rinse the salt off the eggplant slices; dry well with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel.

Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees.

Remove the onion and veggies from the pan. Add a little more olive oil. Again over l0w-medium heat, gently brown the eggplant slices, two or three at the time, until they’re nice and brown on both sides. Remove the eggplants from the pan.

Place a layer of about half the sauteed aromatic vegetables in the bottom of the pan. Lay the eggplant slices over this. Pour about half the tomatoes over them. Top with the rest of the aromatics and the remainder of the canned tomatoes. Sprinkle the top with feta cheese. Bake in a medium-hot oven (about 350 to 375 degrees) for about 20 to 20 minutes, until heated through.

This really is delicious. If you have a no-dairy eater, you can serve the feta on the side instead of baking it into the dish. Should satisfy the most picky eaters at your table!