Dinner for one

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Chelsea

At the beginning of October, N. went to a literary conference in Spearfish, South Dakota. That’s right, Spearfish. For almost a week. Now, I don’t even like eating dinner alone, much less rattling around the empty (all-but-dog) house in the evening and settling into bed by myself (again, aside from the dog who spent each night usurping more of my blankets). You hear the creaking and settling of an old house much more clearly when something is out of the ordinary.

To assuage my loneliness, of course, I turned to food. There are several items in this wonderful culinary world that N. doesn’t like. One of them is shrimp. I know, I must be crazy for having married him with such a deficiency (another of his dislikes is coconut. Crazy!), but otherwise he’s pretty perfect. So in his absence, I ate shrimp. A recent issue of Cooking Light had a wonderful looking shrimp pasta recipe that I wanted to try out, and with the crustacean hater a full time zone away, this was my opportunity.

Shrimp, pine nuts, a little white wine, basil, and some nutmeg and pepper spiced cream made the sauce, and I tossed spaghetti into it and folded the creamy sauce around the long strands of pasta before adding a generous grating of Parmesan cheese. Though this sounded like an excellent meal all on its own, I have been making an effort lately to be sure I include some kind of vegetable (or fruit) material in my meals, and a few julienned leaves of basil wasn’t going to cut it on this one.

I turned to tomatoes. Our sungold cherry tomato plant, with which I’ve been having a serious love affair all summer, provided me with several generous handfuls of tiny, deep orangey-gold spheres of sweet juicy flavor explosions. I drizzled a little olive oil over them in a small skillet and agitated them in the pan until they started to burst their skins. Then I added salt, pepper, and two big glugs of balsamic vinegar and let it heat through until barely simmering. Then I couldn’t stand it anymore, and ate a huge helping of tomatoes and pasta.

It was delicious. The sauce for the pasta was creamy and luscious, punctuated by bursts of freshness from the basil, and deep, complex buttery nuttiness from the pine nuts and nutmeg. The tomatoes, meanwhile, were tart and sweet – almost sweet enough to be dessert. When I went back for a second helping (what can I say, I was all by myself with no one to help me enjoy the feast!), an amazing thing had happened. Though I had turned off the stove (safety first!), I had left the pan containing the tomatoes on the cooling burner, and there was enough residual heat to begin to reduce the balsamic vinegar. What remained was a slowly thickening syrup of balsamic and sweet cherry tomato juice, sticky and oozing among the deflating tomatoes. I couldn’t stand it, I gobbled up the remaining spoonfuls and left the rest of the pasta for another day.

At my house, dinner for one looked like this:

Trick or treat!

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Chelsea

Since Halloween was on a Saturday this year, we donned devil horns, walked downtown, and found a window seat at Davis’ Restaurant and Bar. Right across the street from John Henry’s, Jameson’s, and The Horsehead, it offered a tantalizing view of the night’s revelers. We whetted our appetites for the festivities with the Mezze plate, which consisted of babaganoush, hummus, and tzatziki with warm pita triangles. I thought the cumin flavor in the hummus was a little bit too strong, but the babaganoush was really excellent. Then our server brought around the dessert tray. Among other delicious looking choices (two flavors of cheesecakes in tiny round presentation, a huge and luscious parfait, and a butternut squash pie) there was a creme brulee. A chocolate and cayenne creme brulee. I had to have it.

Sweet, spicy, hard crackling sugar shell with a soft and creamy chocolate mousse underneath, dark and delicious. A perfect Halloween treat. And trick.

Roast Chicken, part III

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Chelsea

With one delicious dinner out of the way and several quarts of stock safely frozen, I used the remaining chicken (the bits I could save; N. kept snacking on succulent pieces straight from the refrigerator!) to make one of my all time favorite summer dinners. With two more big heirlooms ready on the vine, I made a simple chicken salad from the roasted leftovers. I shredded up the chicken into bite-sized chunks with my fingers, then added just the necessities. Well, mostly just the necessities. A creamy spoonful of mayonnaise. Finely chopped dill. Julienned yellow pole beans from our garden that I’d lightly steamed. A handful of mixed chives and green onions, diced up. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the tomatoes ¾ of the way through so that eight thick, juicy slices hang together by half an inch or so at the bottom, but begin to pull apart, leaving a perfectly ripe, red vessel for the chicken salad.

Pile it up good and high.

Sometimes for presentation’s sake, I place the tomato atop a ruffled piece of butter lettuce. Sometimes I don’t.

Then I eat it.

Roast Chicken, part II

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Chelsea

With the falling temperatures and rising rains of autumn comes another unfortunate event. Well, it’s unfortunate in the sense that it interrupts me from my otherwise regularly schedule internet time. So that means it’s unfortunate for the regular updating of this blog, because I stop posting.

School.

We’re in the middle of the third week now, and this is the first time I’ve really had the chance to sit down and get back to the story. It’s all being sitting on the back burner up until now. Which is oddly appropriate, given our current topic.

You’ll remember that when last we met, my first roast chicken had been liberated of meat. The carcass itself I lowered into my gigantic gleaming aluminum pasta pot. I added roughly chopped red onion chunks and quartered carrots. Then I tossed in a liberal mix of herbs: thyme, sage, parsley, rosemary, dill, two or three bay leaves, and a small cupped handful of black peppercorns. I finished by cracking a head of garlic and strewing several cloves, paper wrapped still, around the carcass. I added probably twelve cups of water, and lidded the whole pot up to simmer for two and a half hours.

When I strained out the bones and wasted vegetables, I was able to pour ten cups of rich, buttery-colored stock into my largest Tupperware. At Ina Garten’s helpful suggestion courtesy of the Food Network website, I stowed the container in the fridge overnight, and was rewarded the next morning by a thick layer of fat across the top of the broth, which I scooped off before portioning out the golden liquid into smaller amounts in freezable containers. Though I will not use it for everyday applications that only call for a cup or half a cup of broth, now I will have homemade chicken broth for clear soups and risottos. You can bet that if this roast chicken obsession continues, I will need to start saving every lidded container that goes through my kitchen. Scrubbed and labeled, yogurt and cottage cheese containers alike will be homes to ice-crystalled, rock hard pints of lovingly simmered stock. C’mon, winter cold, I dare you to take on my broth base.

Roast Chicken, part I

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Chelsea

Last night I faced another one of my food anxieties and bravely roasted a whole chicken. This doesn’t sound like much, but for a girl who is capable of producing every side dish in a Thanksgiving feast but is afraid of the turkey, it was kind of a big deal for me. First, I did my research. And my research, I mean I asked around for suggestions on Facebook. I got two recommendations, both from clever friends. A. told me to stuff an herb and garlic mixture under the skin and into the cavity. J. told me not to skimp on the rosemary. I heeded their words. At about 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon, I traipsed out to the garden in the misting spurts of drizzle and picked a big handful of parsley, pineapple sage, silver thyme, and several large twigs of the tiny rosemary bush I am so proud of.*

Back in the kitchen, I chopped the herbs roughly, threw them into a container with four cloves of garlic, a few tablespoons of butter, salt, pepper, and a splash of olive oil, before attacking the whole mixture with my immersion blender. What resulted looked and tasted like the best spread for garlic bread there has ever been.

The next part was probably the most fun, though it could also be construed as the most icky, depending on how you feel about raw chicken. To get the best flavors going, I carefully loosened the skin of the chicken from the meat by jamming my fingers in between them and breaking through the thin layer that attaches the skin to the muscles. When I had loosened quite a bit of the skin on the chicken’s back (I have adopted my mom’s suggestion to roast poultry breast-side down, so the white meat doesn’t dry out as much), I shoved several fingerfuls of my herb butter mixture underneath the chicken’s skin, massaging the flavor into the meat. The mixture was visible from the outside, making the chicken look like it had grown green spots. It was like some strange miniature speckled pterodactyl.

With the tiny bit of leftover butter mixture, I coated the inside of the cavity before placing my 4-pounder in the oven at 350F. Almost exactly 90 minutes later, it was done. I pulled it out and admired the crisp, brown skin for a few moments before quickly tenting it with aluminum foil to stay warm while I made our side dishes.

I steamed a bunch of asparagus to provide some greens, and then, with reverence, sliced up our first gigantic Brandywine tomato for caprese salad. We wanted to be sure and put this first huge beautiful heirloom to good use, since our bush is only promising a few choice specimens, and with the weather as schizophrenic as it usually is at this time of year, we may not get many more. Caprese seemed noble enough. I layered the thick, meaty slices of tomato with fresh mozzarella and just-picked basil, then sprinkled the whole thing with salt and pepper before giving it a healthy drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Gorgeous, no? Who needs lettuce?

We dug in. The caprese was marvelous; the acidic sweetness of the tomato juice mingled with the balsamic vinegar into a beautiful sweet-tangy jus that soaked into the fresh mozzarella, which had enough creaminess to stand up to the firm, meaty flesh of the tomato slices. It was perfect. And then it was gone.

The chicken was delicious as well. It was moist and savory, and the herbs both added some welcome flavors and made it smell really enticing. I forced myself not to eat more than a bite or two of the skin, which was crispy and golden and marvelous. It’s a shame that fat tastes so wonderful, because it is always difficult for me to avoid it. I love that marbling in any cut of meat, and I’m a fiend for the thigh and leg on poultry both because it is moister meat, but also because the skin often gets left on the leg, and I get to chew on some of it as a special treat.

Dinner was delectable, but almost more exciting than dinner was the fate of the leftovers. There was plenty of meat left over after we were finished; even at our hungriest, I doubt that N. and I could polish off a 4 pound chicken with just the two of us, so I picked the carcass pretty thoroughly and will use the meat again soon. As for the carcass, all I can tell you is to stay tuned for “Roast Chicken, part II.”

*Early this spring, I picked a sprig of rosemary from a bush in the neighborhood that was leaning out over the sidewalk. I put it in a vase (read: cleaned and dried empty artichoke hearts jar) and waited. It took about three weeks, but it sprouted roots and I, holding my breath, planted it in a small pot outside. It flourished. It is still pretty small, probably because I keep using its fragrant, pine-scented leaves to cook with, but next spring I will re-pot it to really let it go wild.

In homage to California produce

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Chelsea

One of the things I’ve learned about myself as a cook is that while I am very good at choosing, following, and accurately executing recipes, I am not particularly imaginative – or impressed by my results – without them. To combat this, as should be clear from my recent exposition on lasagna, I have been paying closer attention to ingredient combinations on restaurant menus. With more practice and likely greater culinary training than my own, chefs in restaurants have an understanding of how ingredients work together, and which ones will meld together well, which is something that I am still learning.

So, I have been taking notes and copying descriptions from meals that I enjoy and establishments that I have been impressed by, and trying to recreate them in my own way. Inspired by the ridiculously beautiful shelves of greenery in the Raley’s grocery store in N.’s hometown, I wanted to make something fresh and delicious with plenty of produce. We eat out quite a bit when we visit our parents, because with time to make the trip down to California only twice a year, it tends to be a festive week or two. Therefore, one evening when N.’s parents were out bowling, my vision turned green. There were bright, dripping bunches of broccolini, and rapini, and dandelion greens, and kale and turnip greens, and that was just the beginning. I don’t think I’ve ever seen dandelion greens in a grocery store before, and was tempted, but forced myself to be realistic. I thought back to our trip to Ashland in July, when N. had this:

Gnocchi in an herb, wine and garlic sauce, topped by a rosemary-grilled breast of chicken, bell peppers, and broccolini. Inspiration achieved. I grabbed both broccolini and rapini from the produce shelves, a beautiful orange bell pepper, and some pre-made gnocchi from the refrigerated area. N. has been yearning after these pillowy little fluffs of potato pasta, so I was happy to oblige.

Surrounded by emerald leaves, buds, and juicy stems on the kitchen counter of my in-laws’ house, I chopped up the greens and steamed them briefly to reduce some of the bitterness that I know hides in these lesser-loved brassica hybrids. When they were just tender, I drained off the water and moved them to a deep skillet, where I stir-fried them with thinly julienned bell pepper slices while the gnocchi boiled. I added some garlic, and at the last minute tossed in the gnocchi, some leftover parsley from a previous night’s adventure, and a few small chunks of butter. It wasn’t the most sophisticated sauce, but the colors were just gorgeous. We topped our bowls with parmesan cheese and filled our bellies with vegetables.

It was so simple, but so fresh, and the flavors were strong and tasty. I like bitter vegetables a bit more than N. does, so to make this again I would steam the broccolini and rapini a bit longer, and perhaps in chicken or vegetable broth rather than water. This would probably also make a silkier sauce, as would a dash or two of a full-bodied white wine. However, this fresh burst of vegetables reenergized and refreshed us, and boosts my confidence about my plan of attack. With N.’s Ashland dinner recreated, and three butternut squashes slowly swelling in the garden, my meal from the same night may be next on the “restaurant recreation” horizon. Squash stuffed ravioli in a sage brown butter sauce with crumbled biscotti and gorgonzola cheese, anyone?

"blackberry-eating in late September"

food, in so many words.