Winter Risotto

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Chelsea

In tenth grade, my English teacher assigned us a journal. Once a week, we were to write an entry about a page in length, and from what I recall it could be about whatever we wanted. Mine usually tended toward flights of fancy, as I wrote about elves or nature or about dreams I’d had. To my current shame but my then-pride, these were typically composed the morning the assignment was due, sometimes only in the class period just before English. My teacher, however, seemed to think my hastily penned essays were carefully considered marvels, even mentioning me once as an example to the class about how planning ahead and revising led to beautiful, crafted writing. I tried not to smirk.

One of these spur-of-the-moment entries discussed winter after Christmas: a season of sharp winds, unforgiving temperatures, and frost-slowed aspirations. It was dingy and cold, a harsh contrast to the joy-crammed, spiced festivity of the holiday-gone-by. As a high school student, winter after Christmas meant a return to school, so it’s no wonder I wasn’t enthused. Reflecting now, though, winter after Christmas feels a little different. Maybe it’s that I don’t go back to work until February, but winter after Christmas – winter after New Year’s, really – feels a bit more promising. I’m not talking resolutions, necessarily; I have those, but I’m not trying to turn my whole life around. Instead, it feels like an opportunity for some revising – the kind I never did on my writing as a high school student.

I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I haven’t done very well with this blog lately. So I’m not promising anything, because that sort of promise leads so quickly to disappointment or to shoddy, hasty products, but posting a recipe on January 7^th does feel fairly promising, particularly after a disastrous fall/pre-Xmas performance.

As my high school self knew, this promising season is sometimes hard to see. It’s cold (at least colder than usual, yes, even in Southern California). The sun is steely and the sky sometimes threatens to open. But there are already small indications of warmth and growth and goodness to come. Some brave bulb plants have poked a curious tip or two of green above ground. For me, at least, the urge to organize has reared its head – look out, garage! And for my household, if you follow blackberryeating on Instagram you’ll already know there’s promising newness in the form of four speckled, brindled paws and a pair of liquid brown eyes. No one could ever replace Lucy, but this past weekend we welcomed a shy-but-affectionate little pup named Holly into our home and into the dog-shaped holes in our hearts. She’s a little shy about the big camera at the moment, but I’m sure you’ll be seeing plenty of her as she gets more comfortable.

So: post-Christmas chill but promising growth. You need something comforting with sparks of brightness. I decided on risotto: the warmth of creamy, just-cooked rice, fragrant with the stock and wine it has absorbed, punctuated by the vegetal freshness of whatever accompaniments you decide to stir in (and this seems to be a common thing for me, as seen here). As we’re working with a kind of winter-into-spring theme, I wanted vegetables that bridged the gap. Brussels sprouts stand in for the ragged roughness of winter, sturdy, but peeled into leaves and sliced so thin they become tender with only a minute or two of cooking. Leeks, my favorite member of the onion family, with their wintry white bulbs but supple, pale-green interiors, provide an aromatic bolster, made rich after a slow sweat in butter. Lemon zest to wake things up, and a generous palmful of dill to pull things forward into spring. Little tastes as springy to me as grassy, fresh, green-tasting dill.

We liked this as-is, but I could immediately see that a few perfect scallops, or a handful of shrimp seared with butter and lemon, would make a beautiful topping. So there you have it. Not a promise, but a dish that is, perhaps, promising. Promising of the season to come, promising of impending freshness and growth, and promising of good things on the horizon.

Winter Risotto

40-45 minutes

Serves 8

5-6 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable broth or stock

4 tablespoons butter, divided

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 leeks, white and pale green parts only

2 cups short grain white rice

½ cup white wine

1 pound (16 ounces) brussels sprouts

zest of one lemon

1-2 tablespoons lemon juice

3-4 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

salt and pepper to taste, which you will use to season throughout the cooking process

Start by heating the broth or stock to a simmer in a medium pot. It will warm up faster if you put a lid on it. You might not use it all, but risotto lore affirms absorption will be better and the dish will be ready faster if the liquid is already hot.
While the broth warms, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Prep the leeks by lopping off the roots, if there are any, and cutting off the very dark greens, which are quite tough. Split each leek section lengthwise, so you are left with two half cylinders. Run these under water, using your thumbs to separate the layers a bit and rinse away any grit within. Shake off the excess water, then return to your cutting board and slice each leek very thinly into little half-moon shapes.
When the butter and oil have melted together, add the sliced leeks, a pinch or two of salt and pepper, and, stirring occasionally, let them sweat down and soften for 7-10 minutes. The goal here is not to brown them, but to cook gently.
With soft, tender leek ribbons achieved, crank the heat up to medium high and add the rice all at once, stirring it into and through the vegetables and fat to coat it evenly. Let it toast, stirring gently, for 3-5 minutes. Then pour in the white wine and stir gently but consistently until the liquid is almost completely absorbed.
Now starts the part of risotto making that people consider labor-intensive: turn the heat down to medium and begin adding the stock or broth about a cup at a time. With each addition, stir gently but firmly and frequently as the liquid absorbs. I don’t think you need to stir the whole time, but the more you stir, the creamier your end product will be. The first few additions of broth will seem to absorb very quickly, so more stirring is needed. After ten minutes or so, the broth will absorb more slowly, so you’ll have time for things in between.
Once the absorption rate slows down a bit, you should have time to prep your brussels sprouts. Trim off a bit of the stalk end, especially if it is discolored, and peel away any wilted, yellowed, or discolored leaves. If you are feeling exceptionally patient, peel the sprouts into individual leaves. If you are feeling less patient, cut them into slices as thin as you can manage. Stir in the sprout slices and/or the leaves with your last addition of broth. Sprinkle in a bit more salt to account for the unseasoned veg you just added.
When this final addition of liquid is almost absorbed, the rice should be fully cooked, with just a tiny bite, but not a crunch, in the center. At this stage, add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter, the lemon zest and juice, and the dill. Stir through, sample and add salt and pepper to taste.
If you are adding seared seafood of some kind to round out the meal, serve by adding a scoop of risotto to a shallow bowl, then topping with the protein and, if you like, a final sprinkle of lemon zest and/or dill. If you are not adding anything, I’d still suggest a final sprinkle of zest and dill for punch and aesthetics. Serve hot.

Spring Green Risotto with Poached Egg and Lemon Garlic Breadcrumbs

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Chelsea

My warmest memory of risotto – and the one that probably says the most about me as a person and as the graduate student that I was – is one wintery evening in Oregon, when I was making risotto while preparing for class. This seems counterintuitive, I know. It is. One cannot truly invest in either the stirring required for risotto or the note-jotting, powerpoint slideshow constructing, or annotating usually needed for quality lesson prep. One can, however, position one’s hand just so to hold up and keep open a paperback book in one hand, while leaving the other hand free for a wooden spoon.

The house was cold that night, and I was frantically reading Beowulf in preparation for a lecture the next day in a class for which I was a teaching assistant. Stir, read. Stir, read. Slow, random swipes through the pan, as I drowned myself in Beowulf’s deeds. I probably didn’t get much out of that reading session, but the combination is stuck: warm, creamy rice, and poor Beo fighting against demons of darkness, and of his own overweening.

I’ve complained about risotto before, and it’s true that I often find it underwhelming. But when you combine its warm, melting heartiness against the brightness of spring vegetables, and when you declare that decadence befits a spring break that finally arrived – so you give yourself a week off from blogging because SPRING BREAK, people! – and then you layer on a poached egg and a shower of crispy crumbs shot through with garlic and lemon zest, you have a risotto that I’ll put down my book for.

This one features leeks – my favorite, and sadly so underrated, member of the onion family – as well as slim fingers of asparagus, barely wilted spinach leaves, and a rubble of peas stirred in at the last minute. There’s a generous shower of parmesan cheese at the end, and the egg yolk, still oozy but just thickened, forms its own rich, golden sauce for the risotto when you slide your fork down through it. Risotto isn’t difficult, but it is a bit co-dependent: it requires your presence in the kitchen throughout the process. Still, though, if you are organized and get all of your vegetables prepared while the broth is heating, you can have the whole thing done in less than an hour. What’s that? Two entries in a row with reasonable time spans? Happy spring, my friends.

Spring Green Risotto with Poached Egg and Lemon Garlic Crumbs

Serves 6-8

30-45 minutes

6 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

4 tablespoons butter, divided

2 large leeks, sliced into thin ribbons as described below

4 finely minced garlic cloves, divided

2 cups short or medium grain rice

½ cup dry white wine

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper, black or white

2 1-2 inch sprigs fresh thyme

1 pound slender asparagus spears, woody ends snapped off, spears cut into two inch pieces

1 cup frozen peas

4 ounces baby spinach

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

6-8 eggs (as many as people you are serving)

1 teaspoon white vinegar, for poaching

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

zest from one lemon

salt to taste

In a medium pot, heat the broth while you prep the vegetables – by the time you are ready to add it to the risotto, it should be just below a simmer.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large, high-sided skillet over medium-low heat.
Cut off the root end and the dark green leaves of the leek. Slice the remaining log lengthwise, leaving two long rounded planks. Run these planks under running water, flipping through the layers with your thumbs, to release dirt. Then cut each plank in half lengthwise again, and slice horizontally across into thin ribbons.
Add the leeks and half of the finely minced garlic (so, the equivalent of 2 cloves) to the butter and olive oil in the skillet, and turn the heat up to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, until leeks are very tender but have not browned much, 5-10 minutes. To keep them from caramelizing, you may need to turn the heat down a bit.
When the leeks are translucent and quite tender, turn the heat up to medium-high and add the rice. Stir constantly for 2-3 minutes until the rice grains have become opaque and smell toasty. Pour in the white wine and continue to stir constantly until it is almost all absorbed.
Once the wine is almost completely absorbed by the rice, add about a cup of the heated broth, the salt, the pepper, and the thyme sprigs, and stir to combine. Continue to cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the broth has been absorbed. The more you stir at this stage, the creamier the risotto will be, as what you’re doing is releasing starch from the rice grains into the liquid, which thickens and enriches the mixture.
As each cup of hot broth is absorbed into the rice mixture, add another, stirring frequently while it absorbs. Each addition will take a little longer to integrate.
In between stirring and adding, poach the eggs and make the breadcrumbs. For the eggs, heat water in a small pot until barely simmering. Add the 1 teaspoon white vinegar, then use a spoon to stir the water in the pot in a circle to create a tiny vortex. Quickly and carefully crack the egg into the vortex (or you can crack the egg into a small dish first, and pour/dump it into the pot), and use your spoon to encourage the swirling whites to cling to the central yolk as it spins in the water. After about two minutes in the barely simmering water, use a spoon or a rubber spatula to gently detach the egg from the bottom of the pot, if it is stuck. After about three minutes, use a slotted spoon to remove the egg carefully to a bowl of warm (not hot!) water, and let it sit until you are ready to serve. Repeat for all eggs.
To make the breadcrumbs, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a small pan over medium heat. When it is shimmering, add the panko and stir to coat evenly with the oil. Toast over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, or until the panko is crisp and golden brown. Quickly add the remaining minced garlic and the lemon zest, and stir assertively to combine – these new wet ingredients may clump up together. Cook for about 30 seconds with the garlic and lemon zest incorporated, then remove from the heat, salt to taste, and set aside until you are ready to serve.
As soon as you add the final dose of broth, add the asparagus pieces and stir well. When the broth is almost completely absorbed, add the peas, the spinach leaves, the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, and the 1 cup of parmesan cheese. Stir to incorporate, and cook just until the peas are warmed through and the spinach has wilted but is still bright green.
To serve, spoon a mound of risotto into the center of a shallow bowl. Carefully set the poached egg on top, then sprinkle with a tablespoon or two of the breadcrumbs and serve immediately.

Lemony Leek Meatballs

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Chelsea

I’m sure you’ve been waiting with bated breath for this post. I’ve made you yearn for it for half the month already! But I didn’t want to announce my intent without something to show for it, and now I finally have a triumphant opening act. Can I get a drumroll? The project I’ve decided on for 2015 is…. meatballs.

Meatballs appear in almost every culture. Albondigas find their way into soup in Hispanic cooking. Chinese meatballs are often steamed or boiled. Keftedes are Greek, kofta or kufteh appear in Middle Eastern dishes. A Swedish version coats very small rounds with a sumptuous gravy and serves them with potatoes and lingonberry jam. The classic American meatball, which is in fact of Italian origin, nestles amidst a mound of well-sauced pasta.

But they aren’t just, as the name suggests, balls of meat. Many meatball recipes combine different types of ground meat to maximize flavor but also adjust fat content. Very lean ground meats, like veal, which some meatball preparations use for its flavor, are often combined with something like pork or fattier beef to ensure tenderness and structural integrity. Bread in some form, whether dry and powdered or fresh, springy crumbs, is a frequent ingredient in a meatball. Though this could be to stretch the meat content (think bread crumbs as “filler” in a crab cake), it also absorbs fat and creates a lighter final product – “light” meatballs are often texturally prized above the dense thickness of a meatloaf, for example.

Most meatball recipes also incorporate some sort of aromatics, and sometimes eggs, to the mixture. This isn’t a mere unflattened hamburger; it’s a creation unto itself, and it needs some backup singers to really make the performance impressive. Onions or garlic, sweated or sautéed before incorporating, are common additions. Herbs, parsley perhaps the most common, are also frequent meatball interlopers.

In deciding on meatballs as my project for the year, I am challenging myself with ratios and with flavor combinations. Ratio-wise, the quantities of meat to bread crumbs to eggs to seasoning must be considered; I want a meatball with good structural integrity – it can’t fall apart during cooking – but I also want something light and springy, not tough and dense. Thus quantities, but also mixing and cooking techniques, must be mastered. As for flavor combinations, this isn’t a dish where you can taste a little at a time. It’s not a slice of roast pork that you can eat with or without the vegetable side. Everything in that little sphere must mingle well. Every ingredient must belong, with nothing extra and nothing missing.

I must admit that I am not a huge fan of the most common meatball incarnation in this country. The planet-sized spheres that arrive, drowning in marinara, balanced uneasily atop a plate of spaghetti, have never thrilled me. But outside that standard, pasta-draped option, I love a good meatball. I hope you do too.

So here’s the challenge: once a month, I will present you a meatball recipe. I have some ideas already, but I’m starting myself out gently with a few recipe adaptations before I strike out into unpracticed territory. And if you have any meatball ideas you’d like to see actualized, let me know in the comments or send me an email! I’ll happily cook something up.

For the opening act, I looked no further than Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi in their stellar cookbook Jerusalem. I love this volume. When I bought it for myself last year, I gave up marking recipes I wanted to try with a post-it note because, let’s face it, that’s just not helpful when you are marking almost every page. But the Lemony Leek Meatballs, curiously filed in the vegetable section, stood out. First of all, as Ottolenghi and Tamimi note, they are packed with a staggering quantity of leeks which, despite the beef that makes up the “meat” component, really do emerge as stars in the dish. Secondly, the sauce, chicken broth spiked with a tremendous dose of lemon juice, sounded so bright and aggressive with flavor that I just wanted to drink a mugful.

I wasn’t disappointed. The meatballs sear up golden and aromatic, and as they simmer in the sauce they soak up its acidity and turn it into something outrageous – an intensely savory lemon caramel coating around fragrant pyramids (mine wouldn’t stay round). The leeks and beef are a stellar combination, and the addition of fresh bread crumbs as well as the gently pulverized leeks keep the meatballs light and fresh, probably why they are classified as an appetizer or starter in Jerusalem.

I’ve made a few changes from the original, a dicey business with beloved traditional recipes like many of these, but they are minor. Rather than steaming the leeks, I’ve sautéed them gently in a mixture of butter and olive oil for extra flavor. To keep with my project theme, I’ve maintained the ball shape, rather than flattening them into patties as Ottolenghi and Tamimi direct. Finally, as I’ve noted below, I increased the number of meatballs – rather than 8, as in the original recipe, I’ve done 12, and really you could easily make 16 from the same amount of mixture.

Forewarning: this is a lengthy process. Like, if you are really on top of your game and quick on the prep and ready to multitask, “lengthy” means about two hours. The leeks must be cooked down first, which takes a good 20 minutes, and then cooled. The meat mixture, once it’s formed into balls, must be chilled for a full half hour to ensure that they stay together in the pan. After searing, the meatballs simmer in the rich, tart broth for another half hour, and then must cool a bit, as they taste better just warm or at room temperature than scaldingly hot out of the pan. All this means you are looking at almost two hours of prep and cooking time – not onerous, particularly because half an hour of that is just cooling your heels while your meatballs do the same, but worth noting before you charge in hoping to have dinner on the table in the blink of an eye.

Serving suggestions: tuck them into warm pita or naan with the yogurt and perhaps a few slices of cucumber, or sit them on a bed of fragrant couscous shot through with toasted nuts and green onions, or maybe some finely chopped dried apricots. Add a sprinkle of good, tart feta to the top for some extra zing.

Lemony Leek Meatballs

adapted from Jerusalem

serves 2-3 as an entree, 4-6 as part of an appetizer plate

NOTE! Takes the better part of 2 hours

6 large trimmed leeks, root end and dark green portion removed

1 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 teaspoons salt, divided

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

9 ounces ground beef (just over ½ a pound)

scant 1 cup bread crumbs (1-2 slices)

2 large eggs

1¼ cups chicken stock

⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)

⅓ cup greek yogurt

1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

Slice the trimmed leeks in half lengthwise to form long half-cylinders. Rinse well, being sure the water gets in between the layers, where dirt can be hidden. Shake off and slice across into ¾ inch slices.
Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and ½ teaspoon salt, and clamp on the lid. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes, until the leeks are completely tender but not browned.
Drain leeks in a colander, pushing them against the sides with the flat of a wooden spoon to press out some of the water. Leave to cool, then squeeze out any residual water with a clean kitchen towel.
Dump leeks into a food processor and pulse a few times until well chopped, but not mush. Place them in a large bowl with the ground beef, bread crumbs, eggs, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, and use your fingertips to gently combine the ingredients into a homogenous mix. Try not to overwork. The final mixture will be quite soft.
Gently form the mix into 12-16 equal balls and refrigerate 30 minutes (this gives the bread crumbs some time to absorb some of the fat and liquid in the mixture, and helps these delicate, soft meatballs stay together).
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat in the same large skillet (wipe it out first if there is leek detritus lingering). Gingerly add the meatballs, being sure they don’t touch, and sear until golden-brown on all sides (2-3 minutes for each side); you can do this in batches if necessary.
Now, pour on the chicken stock – it should come about halfway up the sides of the meatballs; maybe a bit higher. Add the lemon juice and remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then pop on the lid, turn the heat down to medium or medium-low, and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the lid and cook for a few more minutes, if necessary, until almost all the liquid in the pan has evaporated. Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside to cool.
Serve the meatballs just warm or at room temperature, with a dollop of the yogurt and a sprinkle of parsley.

Three for One

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Chelsea

Sometimes you are faced with not enough: not enough time, not enough money, not enough to do…

And sometimes you are faced with too much: too much bounty, too much responsibility, too much joy. These are both their own kind of problem. And if I have to choose, faced with these Januses, I will always go for too much. Even if I fall short.

Last week I only managed one Bittman. This week, in a startling display of ambition and motivation, I did three.

One of the biggest challenges of this project (aside from cooking, photographing, and writing about the food… you know… actually doing it…) has been deciding what to serve these dishes with. I’m not up for roasting a chicken or a turkey every week to emulate the Thanksgiving spirit of the project, so I try to piece them together with other entrees. As you’ve seen, if you’ve been following the project for any length of time, sometimes I choose well, and sometimes I decidedly don’t.

This week, riffling through the slowly diminishing options, it occurred to me for the first time that I could serve them as complements to each other. They were all, after all, conceived for the same imagined table. They should work together quite nicely.

“7. Cranberry-Orange Sauce: Cook a bag of fresh cranberries with orange and lemon zest, cut up (peeled) orange segments, ¼ cup sugar (or to taste) and a bit of minced jalapeño or chipotle.”

This sounded good and, with the slightly cooler temperatures we’ve been privileged to receive lately, a nice symbol of our entry into Fall. Cranberries and oranges are a frequent couple – almost too expected – but there’s a reason they appear together so frequently. And with the addition of lemon juice and some spice, this seemed far enough from traditional to avoid being boring.

1 bag cranberries (probably 1 pound?)

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 large or two small oranges (mine were little Valencias from our Farmers’ Market)

Segments of 1 large or two small oranges

¼ – ½ cup sugar, depending on your taste and the tartness of your berries

Dash of spice, depending on your taste

I bounced the cranberries into a pot, zested the lemon and oranges over them, and then cut the peel from the orange and sliced out supremes. For good measure, I squeezed as much juice from the wasted scraps of orange as I could, then topped the mix with sugar and a dusting of cayenne (I had neither jalapeno or chipotle available) and pushed it onto the back burner.

I let the pot come to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to melt the sugar evenly and prevent it from burning until the cranberries released some juice to protect the mixture. Once it boiled, I lowered the heat and let the whole thing simmer for about 20 minutes. At one point I tasted, decided there wasn’t enough sugar or cayenne, and added more of both. The addition of sugar was a good thing. The addition of more cayenne was less so. I’d caution you to start with less than you think you will want. The mixture does not taste at all spicy while it’s hot. When it cools, though, it becomes fiery. It was still tasty, though. We ate it sticky and thick and room temperature, dabbing up popped clusters of ruby and letting it linger on our tongues – but not too long – enough to wake our taste buds from the spice. As an autumnal side, this works very well and is a pleasant update to the traditional cranberry sauce. It would also make a glorious topping for a baked brie, perhaps with some rosemary or red wine glugged in for good measure.

While the cranberry sauce was heating, I turned my attention to its companion.

“59. Blanch thinly sliced potato and leeks until tender but not mushy; drain well. Layer the vegetables in an oiled or buttered baking dish, then top with a mixture of bread crumbs and lightly sautéed chopped bacon (some cheese mixed in is pretty good, too). Broil until golden brown.”

Potatoes and leeks are a combination that, a mere year or so ago, I didn’t realize existed. Now it’s such a natural pairing I can’t believe I never knew about it before. Sliced blanched potatoes and sautéed leeks now fill every frittata I make. I collected:

2 russet potatoes, peeled

1 massive leek, tough tops and root ends removed, halved vertically (rinse it out well at this point) and sliced into slim, slim, oh-so-slim half moons

1 lb. bacon

½ – 1 cup bread crumbs (I used Italian seasoned)

Knowing how good leeks can be when they are sweated and barely brown, and conscious that the beauty of bacon grease shouldn’t go to waste, I made a few changes to Bittman’s directions.

First I cooked the bacon. You likely don’t need a whole pound of it, but this guaranteed an appetizer: one still sizzling slice each for N. and for me. If you aren’t cooking for or with someone else, go wild and have two all by your lonesome.

While the bacon cooked and the cranberries simmered and popped, I put a pot of water on to boil. When its aggressive bubbling demanded attention, I carefully lowered in the potato slices and gave them free reign for five or ten minutes.

When it was edging toward crisp, I set the bacon aside to cool and drain a bit on a paper towel lined plate. I dumped the potatoes into a colander when they were barely cooked through.

Time for the leeks. I scraped my board free of the slender, just green shards, capturing a satisfying fizz as the vegetation hit the pan. You want to stir with some frequency here, and not raise the heat above medium; we’re looking for a light sauté, not a heavy brown.

The shards collapsed into resistant-less ribbons, and I pushed them to one side to add the drained, cooling potatoes. With adept wooden spoon manipulation, I managed to achieve something like layering: half the potatoes flat on the bottom of the pan, the leeks draped across them, and the rest of the potato slices on top.

I turned on my broiler, and while it heated I crumbled the bacon, tossed it with bread crumbs, and dusted the potatoes with the mixture. But dust wasn’t enough. They required a landslide. I drizzled the top with olive oil, knowing the bread crumbs would need it to brown, and slid the whole pan into the broiler (note: if you use a skillet or pan for this, rather than a casserole dish, be sure you wrap any plastic or rubber with aluminum foil before you put it into the broiler. We don’t want your nice pan handles to melt…).

Five minutes later, the parts of the crumble I had oiled were beautiful brown (the other parts remained sandy and unaltered, much to my chagrin) and the dog was close by, nose moist with curiosity and the urge to assist.

We loaded our plates, completing the meal with a completely unnecessary slice of toasted jalapeno cheese bread, and ate.

As has proved often the case with Bittman’s layered vegetable dishes, I expected this one to be a gratin, and it just wasn’t. Some cream, some cheddar cheese, some binding between the vegetables, would have been ideal. But not crucial. They weren’t supposed to be scalloped potatoes, after all. The bacon and bread crumbs made them exciting, and the leeks were almost creamy nestled between the thick slices. Honestly, forgetting to salt the water I boiled the potatoes in was the only real unfortunate mistake. Two down, with only one mistake (two, I suppose, if you count the overly spicy cranberries, which I suppose I do), is pretty promising.

To make this a trifecta, on another night I chose another autumnal option.

“64. Mushroom Bread Pudding: Put 6 cups of good bread (day-old is best) cut into 1-inch chunks into a buttered baking dish. Beat 4 eggs with 2 cups of milk and ½ cup grated Parmesan and pour over the bread. Sauté 4 cups of sliced mushrooms until tender with a teaspoon or two fresh thyme leaves and mix into the bread. Bake until just set, about 40 minutes.”

Mushrooms and thyme are so nice together. They are earthy and deep and musty, like the back of a dark pantry into which no anxious hands have reached for some time. Since they were more precise than usual, I followed Bittman’s ingredient quantities almost to the letter.

I sautéed the mushrooms and thyme in butter, taking time to let the slices soak up the butter, then expel their own liquid. Only after that, as the moisture from the mushrooms evaporates from the pan, can the mushrooms take on the same kind of crisp brown sear as a steak pressed into a screamingly hot pan.

While the mushrooms cooled, I tore up the crusts of a month’s worth of sourdough bread (I keep them in the freezer for just these sorts of occasions) and pressed them gently into a buttered square glass baking dish. I grated cheese – swiss and parmesan – and cracked eggs from the Farmers’ Market into a bowl, marveling at the rich orange yolks you just can’t get in the grocery store. I stabbed them, flooded them with milk, and whisked in the cheese.

I turned to assembly. First, mushrooms must be tossed with bread. Attempt even distribution. Then, a careful, rich pour of the dairy component, taking care to attend to the corners, until the bread almost floated in a puddle of would-be custard.

One of the things I’ve learned in my years of bread pudding production is that pressure and soaking time yield the best results. I carefully pressed a layer of plastic wrap over the top of my pudding and set it in the fridge for an hour, while N. and I answered the velvet brown eyes begging for “walkies.”

Upon our return, it was as simple as preheating the oven to 375F (pull the pudding out of the fridge and let it approach room temperature as your oven heats), sliding the baking dish onto a rack, and reluctantly grading a paper or two as 45 minutes ticked by (I like my bread pudding a little more than “just” set).

A puff in the center signifies doneness. Mine levitated just barely in the middle, but the custard was set and the edges of bread not submerged were crisp and darkly golden.

The serving spoon broke sharply through the crisp top but then exhaled through the custard underneath. Piled on our plates next to an amazing skillet casserole of deeply browned sautéed Brussels sprouts and chopped walnuts drizzled with a balsamic glaze, we accepted its golden softness. With a higher ratio of eggs to milk than most bread puddings I’ve made, this had almost a soufflé quality, though vastly more substantial. It was rich and earthy and savory, and I suspect it will be just as good for breakfast as it was for dinner.

Three more down. This can be done. 2012 has already been a year of many accomplishments. Why not go for too many, rather than hesitating at not enough?