Labor of Love

William and I had a debate over the title to the post about our Valentine's Day meal. He suggested "Food Court," I liked "Courting food" the one I used was the most appropriate. Separately, all of these recipes are pretty easy to make. Trying to make them all at once on one day was a little bit of effort.

Hang on to your hat, this is going to be a long one.

The menu consisted of baked chicken, a gratin of potatoes and Swiss cheese, oven-roasted asparagus, homemade dinner rolls and blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream.

We had errands to run so I didn't get started on any of this until around two in the afternoon. If anybody decides to recreate this menu in its entirety, I suggest starting in the morning and making the dough for the pie crusts and the rolls and then you won't feel like a one-armed paper hanger trying to put it all together.

Blueberry Pie

Crust: makes enough for a 9-inch deep dish double-crust pie -
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup Crisco all-vegetable shortening
7 to 8 tablespoons cold water

Filling :
6 cups fresh or frozen blueberries. If using fresh, lightly rinse and dry them.

1 cup plus 1 Tbs sugar

1/ cup cornstarch

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1 tsp vanilla

1 large egg white lightly beaten with 1 Tbs water

HINT: keep the crust cold before rolling it out; brush the bottom of the pie with egg white before filling to prevent it from getting soggy and to get the filling to the right consistency, use about 1/4 cup of cornstarch for each six cups of berries.

Mix the flour and salt together in large mixing bowl. Scatter spoonfuls of the vegetable shortening in the the bowl and work with a pastry cutter until the shortening and flour are combined and look like pea-sized crumbles.

Divide the dough in half; form into 2 thick disks, and cover with plastic wrap. Chill for a least 1 hour.

Remove 1 disk of dough from the refrigerator. Unwrap and roll it out 1/8" thick on a lightly floured surface to fit a 9-inch pie plate.

Press it into the bottom and sides of the pie plate; trim the dough, leaving a 1" overhang.

Chill the pie shell until ready to use. Roll out the second disk of dough to make the top crust, then fold it into quarters and place on a plate; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Toss the blueberries with 1 cup sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, lemon zest and vanilla.

Remove the prepared pie shell from the refrigerator. Brush the bottom and sides with the egg-white mixture to prevent sogginess.

Spoon the blueberry mixture into the pie shell. Remove the top crust from the refrigerator and unfold it over the filling. Trim the overhang to 1".

Moisten the edges where they meet, then press them together lightly and turn under. Crimp the edge decoratively. Cut several decorative slashes in the crust (to allow steam to escape), then brush lightly all over with water; sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.

Bake the pie in lower third of the oven until the filling is bubbly and crust is golden brown, 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours. Cool on a rack before serving warm or at room temperature. Serves 6 to 8

Since I am not the Food Network test kitchen I did not make this recipe 15 times until I had the perfect pie to whip from the oven and photograph. The pie was very good, but if I make it again I will make an aluminum collar for the outer edge of the crust to prevent it from getting too brown.

I almost fainted when I checked on my pie 10 minutes before it was supposed to come out of the oven and saw how dark the outside crust was. I got the pie out of the oven and, belatedly, put strips of aluminum foil around the edges to keep them from getting darker while the middle of the pie finished cooking. It would have been a lot easier to do this at the beginning while the pie was cool and removed the foil near the end of the baking time than it was trying to mold foil over burning hot crust.

Next up:

Classic Dinner Rolls
Yield: 1 1/2 to 2 dozen rolls.

4 to 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 envelopes (1/2 ounce or 4 1/2 tsp) Fleischmann's Active Dry or RapidRise Yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt3/4 cup very warm milk (120 to 130 F)

1/2 cup very warm water (120 to 130 F)

1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

2 eggs

Poppy Seed or Sesame Seed, optional

In large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, sugar, undissolved yeast, and salt.

Gradually add warm milk, warm water, and butter; beat 2 minutes at medium speed of electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally.

Add 1 egg and 1/2 cup flour; beat 2 minutes at high speed. With spoon, stir in enough remaining flour to make soft dough. Grease top; cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate 2 to 24 hours.
Remove from refrigerator. Punch dough down. Remove dough to lightly floured surface. Shape as desired. Place rolls, about 2 inches apart, on greased baking sheets (or in other pans as directed). Cover; let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 20 to 40 minutes.
Beat remaining egg; brush on rolls. If desired, sprinkle with poppy or sesame seed. Bake at 375 F for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from sheets or pans; let cool on wire racks.
PAN ROLLS: Divide dough into 2 equal pieces. Cut each piece into 12 equal sections and roll them into a ball. Place 12 balls in each of 2 greased 8-inch round baking pans. This dough keeps well in the refrigerator for 24 hours so you can use half the dough one day and make a fresh pan of rolls again the next day with the half you have reserved.

Gratin Dauphinois

(Scalloped Potatoes with Milk, Cheese and Garlic)

I think this is the best potato dish ever. It's easy to make, you can use any kind of cheese you like (Swiss is traditional) and it is really hard to screw up. If you can find the Gruyere, buy it and hang the expense.

Ingredients

7 tablespoons butter, divided

2 pounds Russet potatoes, thinly sliced

1 large peeled garlic clove

3/4 to 1 cup shredded Gruyère or Swiss cheese

salt

black pepper

1 to 1 1/2 cups evaporated milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425F.

Slice the potatoes as thin as you can. I use a mandolin - it's quick and easy and cuts all of the potatoes to a uniform thickness.

Rub the peeled garlic clove all over an 11-by-7-inch baking dish or gratin dish then throw the garlic away. When I first read to do this in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I thought it was a mistake, but doing this instead of adding minced garlic to the potatoes adds a subtle hint of flavor without overwhelming the potatoes and the cheese.

Grease the pan with 1 tablespoon of the butter.

Arrange half the potatoes in dish, sprinkle with half the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Dot with half of the butter.

Repeat layers. then pour the milk over the potato layers and bake for 40 minutes or until potatoes are tender, milk is absorbed and top is browned.

I used to hate asparagus. For some reason my mother always seemed to buy the great big stalks and would steam or boil them until they were mushy and, in my opinion, tasted really nasty. I don't know what possessed me to try them again - probably saw The Barefoot Contessa make them on TV - but now I think they are divine.

Choose thin, firm, bright green stalks with tight caps that are a slightly darker green.

When you get them home, cut a good bit of the ends off - they can be dry and stringy, and store them standing in water in the refrigerator until you are ready to roast them.

Oven Roasted Asparagus

1 or two bunches of fresh asparagus

2 to 3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

salt

pepper

Lay the asparagus in a roasting pan. Sprinkle with the oil, salt and pepper and toss to coat them.

Roast in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes or until the stalks are slightly browned and tender.

My Mom's Baked Chicken

Whenever I smell this baking in the oven I expect to see my mother in the kitchen, her neck crooked to hold the black telephone receiver to her ear and both hands busy mashing a big pot of boiled potatoes. It is a simple recipe and the drippings make excellent gravy.

I used a six-pound roasting chicken but the method is the same no matter what size chicken you use.

Put the chicken in a bag with about a half a cup of flour. Shake it up until the whole chicken is powdered. Place in a roasting pan, on or off a rack, your choice, and dot with butter. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and Bell's Poultry Seasoning (or a combination of ground sage and thyme).

Bake at 350, basting occasionally with the pan juices until the chicken is done. You can use a meat thermometer if you want, but I like my chicken well done and I take it out of the oven and wiggle one of the legs. If it feels like it is going to pull right off, it's done.

Aerosol pancakes!

http://www.batterblaster.com/
File this under "now I've seen it all."

If you can't make pancake batter, stay out of the kitchen....

Gotta love those little donkeys

I'm kind of dating myself here, but in the early 1980's, there was a place on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater called Naugles that made the best burritos I have ever eaten. My favorite was the Macho Beef Burrito with sour cream, black olives and a mountain of cheddar cheese. The thing was immense.

When a craving for one of those beauties called, it was impossible to resist. Unfortunately, the chain only lasted from 1970 to 1988 and it was a sad day for me when they closed. The next best thing was a place called Mexico Grande on Highland Avenue, and their burritos were good, but sadly, not the same. I still haven't found a recipe that even comes close to replicating the venerable burritos of my past, but these are pretty darn good.

The method for making these is a little unusual because you don't brown the meat. The ground beef is combined with a can of refried beans, water and spices and simmered slowly for an hour or so. The result is a filling that has a texture that's hard to describe but much better for burritos than the typical taco meat.

It's tempting to just grab a package of ground beef or ground chuck at the supermarket but, do your arteries a favor and grind your own meat. I'm notorious for reading the labels on everything and when I noticed that the packages of ground chuck stated they contained a whopping 35 percent fat, I was flabbergasted. It really bothers me to pay for 35 percent of something I am going to end up pouring down the drain. I know you can buy the stuff labled "lean" or "extra lean" but it doesn't have a whole lot of flavor.

Ever since I read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair when I was 9 I have been suspicious of meat products I can't personally identify. Grinding my own meat offers two big plusses for me. 1) I know what's in it. 2) I can control the quality and fat content of what I am putting in my mouth.

If you want ground chuck, buy chuck steak or a chuck roast and do it yourself. It takes about 10 minutes to trim off all of the fat and connective tissue and grind it in a food processor. Just remember to buy a little more meat than the recipe calls for because you will lose some of that in the trimming.

One thing I can't live without is my food scale. They are inexpensive and make it easy to know how much meat you have left after grinding .

Burrito filling:

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1 (16 ounce) can old el paso refried beans

3 Tbs chili powder

1 Tbs ground cumin

2 Tbs dried minced onion

1 tsp garlic powder

1 beef boullion cube

1 1/2 cups water

Directions

Thoroughly combine uncooked ground beef, refried beans, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, minced onion, bullion cube and water.

Bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

Uncover and continue to simmer until liquid is reduced and mixture is thick. This usually takes another 20 minutes or so.






Be careful when stirring this stuff it bubbles up like lava.














To make the burritos, spread a spoonful of the meat and bean mixture on a warm large flour tortilla. Top with shredded lettuce, salsa or diced tomatoes with green chilies, cheese, black olives, sour cream or whater ever else you like. By request, I made baked rice with green chilies to go with them last night.

Baked Rice with Green Chilies:

Ingredients
3 cups cooked rice (i cup raw rice, two cups water)
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup monterey jack cheese or monterey jack pepper cheese, shredded
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1-2 teaspoon chili powder
2 cans chopped green chilies, drained

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix all ingredients in an ungreased 2 quart casserole.
Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until heated through.

Two of my favorite things...

Pizza and Peroni.

In a comment directed to my last post, Wiredogs asked me what I would do for Valentine's Day and I half-jokingly said "calzones with ham and ricotta."

I may have inherited Polish genes and can make a mean pirogi but I sincerely believe that I must have been Italian in a previous life.

The folder of printed recipes in my file cabinet marked "pasta" is four inches thick.

Give me a pizza or plate of lasagna and I'll follow you around like a dog.

Under the Tuscan Sun (the book not the insipid movie they made as an adaptation of the book) is one of my favorites - I'm currently listening to it on CD and alternate between great admiration for the author and a terrible loathing brought on by an all-consuming envy. I want to renovate an old villa in Tuscany and grow my own olives too! Not fair, not fair, not fair! Wah!

When we lived closer to civilization, there were any number of decent places to get a pizza but living out in the hinterland, as we do, the options are slim and disappointing - Hungry Howie's, Pizza Hut, Domino's or do-it-yourself. So I do it myself.

I've probably wasted days of my life searching the internet high and low for the best pizza recipe from Chicago-style deep dish to my favorite ones with a New York-style crust - one of the first recipes I found sometime in the late 1980's from a Usenet newsgroup and luckily printed out (can't find it anymore) is one called John's Ultimate New York-Style Pizza and it is still the best - slightly adapted.

John's Ultimate New York-Style Pizza Dough

1 1/2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees)

1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast

4 to 4 1/2 cups all purpose unbleached flour

scant teaspoon of salt

You can do this by hand but I use my old reliable Kenwood stand mixer that looks like an outboard motor.

Dissolve the yeast in the mixing bowl and let it bloom (get frothy) for about 10 minutes or more depending on the weather.

Add half the flour, then the salt and the other half of the flour, beating in between. I use the the paddle attachment first then switch to the dough hook once the dough starts coming together.

Knead the dough with the dough hook for a good 10 minutes, adding a tablespoon or two of flour if the dough is too loose (turn the speed down for this or you will end up dusting the entire kitchen).

You don't want the dough to be stiff, it should be soft and pliant and not too sticky.

Put the dough in an oiled bowl, turning once to coat the dough, and cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap.


You can make the dough ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator and take it out to rise (takes longer) or put the bowl on top of the stove while you preheat the oven to 475.









Dust your counter with flour and roll the dough out to approximately the size of your pan.
Oil pan with olive oil and dust with fine corn meal or semolina flour to prevent the dough from sticking.

This recipe makes enough dough for a 16 or 18-inch pizza plus a second 12-inch pie.

I've tried pizza stones, tiles in the oven as hot as it could go but so far, my best result is a slower oven and baking the pizza twice, once in the pan with cheese and sauce and then again out of the pan, directly on the rack with the toppings and more cheese once the crust is firm enough.






There are some really obsessive compulsive pizza chefs out there who claim that you can't make good dough without weighing the flour and meticulously measuring the hydration, etc.

This has not been my experience. In fact, I think pizza dough can be pretty forgiving.


Last night, after I had the dough in the bowl to rise and on top of the stove, I preheated the oven to 350 and went out to the barn to feed the horses. An hour later, when I got back in and started rolling out the dough, I forgot to turn the oven up in preparation of baking the pizza. Consequently, the first round of baking took longer than the 10 minutes I thought it would. That's when I realized my mistake. I turned the oven up to 475 for its second round in the oven with no detectable negative effects.
A couple of tips for making a good pizza. First, less is more. It's really tempting to load your pizza with sauce and toppings and cheese. Too much sauce and you get soggy pizza. Too much cheese and it can be an oily mess. Too many topping s and it can be disastrous when you try and finish the pizza out of the pan directly on the oven rack.

It's a little unorthodox, but I line the dough with rounds of provolone and smooth the sauce on top of that before adding the first sprinkling of mozzarella. For this pizza (18 inches) I used an 8 ounce package of provolone and about 8 ounces of whole milk mozzarella.

I diced the pepperoni so that we got some in every bite. The big pieces may look prettier, but have a tendency to rip half the cheese off your pizza slice when to you try and eat them.

The sauce I used was some excellent marina I had in the freezer. Emily made it with fresh plum tomatoes and it is perfect. You can also use the marinara for pasta or lasagna - any recipe that calls for tomato sauce.

Her sauce is time consuming to make so you can use your own recipe for sauce. I have also had very acceptable results using canned spaghetti sauce (garlic and herb) in a pinch.

Emily's Marinara

Ingredients:

5 lbs. plum tomatoes (or 3 to 4 28 oz cans of whole peeled tomatoes)

2 large onions

1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil

2 to 3 tablespoons freshly minced garlic

1 12 oz. can tomato paste

1 cup red wine

1 to 2 teaspoons sugar (optional)

1 to 2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 handful fresh rosemary OR 1 tablespoon dry1

handful fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dry

2 to 4 tablespoons fresh chopped oregano

OR 1 tablespoon dry

1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

Method

To prepare the tomatoes, scratch the skin of each lightly with a very sharp knife, and boil a few at a time in some salted water for 30 seconds to a minute, or until the skin begins to peel away from the scratch.

Immediately after boiling, place the tomatoes in an ice bath to prevent further cooking. After all the tomatoes have been submerged in the bath, core them and peel them.

Put them aside.

Next, dice the onion and saute in the olive oil for ten minutes or so, or until they are soft and translucent, then mix in the tomato paste and garlic and cook another couple minutes.

Add the tomatoes. Cook them over medium heat for about fifteen to twenty minutes, or until they are easily crushed by a spoon and have released a good amount of liquid. Then add the rest of the ingredients-- the wine, the herbs and the spices. Let this cook for a little while longer and then carefully puree everything until smooth. (use a hand blender or puree in batches in a blender)

Return the sauce to the pot and simmer for at least two hours, or as long as you like, until the tomatoes have mellowed a little and all of the flavors of the spices are incorporated. This sauce is especially good with meatballs or on chicken/sausage parm sandwiches.

A great way to kill a day

Before I make a dish I usually spend quite a bit of time looking at recipes on the internet.
When I found skirt steak at our local Mexican supermarket my quest was for the perfect Ropa Vieja. I think I found it. This recipe is one I came up with after combining different elements from the recipes I found. It is an all day project. None of the cooking is difficult but there are a lot of steps to making this and it isn't something you can whip up when you get home at 5 o'clock. This meal took the better part of a day but it was really worth it and it makes enough for a small platoon.
My Ropa Vieja
3 lbs skirt steak
2 carrots cut in chunks
1 large onion cut in 8ths
3 celery stalks cut in chunks
1 TBS dried oregano
Salt
Pepper
4 cups chicken broth (homemade is best – don’t want it to be too salty)

Make sure to buy real skirt steak, the dish is called Ropa Vieja (old clothes) because of the way the shredded meat looks like rags.

Brown the meat in a stew pot in a little bit of oil in batches about five minutes a side– you want to brown both sides.
(set the browned ones on a plate while you sear the rest) When the meat is done and out of the pan add the carrot, celery, onion and oregano. Season with salt and pepper.

Put the meat in and pour the chicken broth over it and simmer for several hours until the meat is falling apart.

When the meat is done let it cool then take it out of the broth and strain the vegetables out and reserve the broth. Shred the meat.

Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables:

1 green pepper
3 red peppers (they don’t have to be huge)
1 large yellow or white onion
2 large cloves of garlic, minced or two teaspoons of the stuff from the jar
four or five small ripe tomatoes cut into eights (you can used canned if fresh aren't available)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ cup of sherry
1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in water
Tabasco sauce to taste
Cut the peppers in half then cut each half into ½ inch strips. Cut the onion in chunks about the same size.
In the pot you cooked the meat, sauté the onion and pepper in a little oil until the onion starts to go translucent. Add the sherry, tomatoes, garlic, and. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, make a slurry with a little water and 1 Tbs of cornstarch. Add to the broth you strained from cooking the meat and reduce it either in the microwave or in a pan until it is slightly thickened and you have about 2 ½ to 3 cups of broth. I just let the broth cool and skimmed the fat from the top and added the slurry to that. I like more sauce but reduce to 2 1/2 cups if you prefer less.
Add this to the peppers and onions and tomatoes and then all the shredded meat – shake some pepper sauce and stir then taste it to see if it needs salt or pepper and simmer for an additional ½ hour.

Serve over white or yellow rice, with or without seasoned black beans.
Every recipe I saw called ½ cup of sliced green olives but I didn’t add them because William hates them but I added some to mine and it was really excellent.

At the same Mexican Market I found a package of achiote seed so I decided to make achiote oil and my own yellow rice.

Achiote Oil:

1 cup corn oil
2 ounces achiote (annatto) seeds.

Heat the oil and annatto seeds in a small skillet over medium heat just until the seeds give off a lively, steady sizzle. Don't overheat the mixture or the seeds will turn black and the oil will turn a nasty green. Once they're sizzling, remove the pan from the heat and let stand until the sizzling stops. Strain and reserve in a jar with a tight-fitting lid at room temperature for up to 4 days or refrigerate.

Basic Yellow Rice (Arroz Amarillo Basico)

INGREDIENTS:
3 tablespoons annatto oil
2-1/2 cups rice
4 to 4-1/2 cups boiling water or chicken stock
2 teaspoons salt

Heat the oil in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Add the rice and stir to combine. Stir in the boiling liquid and salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until the liquid evaporates. Cover and cook over very low heat for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes.

I wanted to make arepas to go with this but ran out of time because I had to get hay for the horses but this recipe looked good:

Arepas

1 cup masa harina

1 cup warm water

Dash of salt

1 tsp cooking oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and gradually add the warm water and oil, mixing to form a stiff dough. Let rest for 5 minutes.

Knead the dough for a couple of minutes. Take a small amount of the dough and form into flat, round cakes approximately 3" to 4" in diameter and approximately 1/2" to 3/4" thick. shape and press around the edges to make it even and smooth.

Continue making these patties until the dough is used up.

Grease a heavy skillet or griddle and set over low heat. When the surface is hot, place the patties, one or two at a time, on the griddle to brown on both sides, approximately 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove from the griddle. Drain on paper towels. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.

Back by popular demand

Well, not popular demand actually. Emily asked me about the blog the other day and said she thought I should update it so, here we are.

I doubt if I will be doing this on a daily basis - I have a strange fear of commitment to any online endeavor like Facebook or MySpace. I have cousins who change theirs hourly but it's too much like work if I have to do it, so I don't. Does that make sense? Besides, I think I'm the only one who ever looks at the blog so, what's the point?

Anyway, to start the new year a little late I'm posting BBQ Pork Fried Rice.

First, I marinated

overnight five meaty county style pork ribs in soy sauce, sherry, sugar, and a couple of teaspoons each of pureed garlic and fresh ginger.

I roasted them in a 350 degree oven until the meat was falling off the bone and most of the fat had rendered out. When the meat was cool I cut it into bite sized pieces.

In the mean time, I cooked 1 ½ cups of rice in 3 cups of water. Use whatever kind of rice you like. Jasmine would be nice but since there's so many flavors in the rest of the ingredients, I just used an Uncle Ben's type long grain. If you like your fried rice stickier, use shorter grained rice. It's a good idea to make the rice in advance - like the day before you plan to use it - I've used both fresh and pre-prepared and the older rice turns out less mushy.

The ideal way to make fried rice is in a wok, but on my ceramic smooth top range, it is impossible so I just use my old standby all purpose pot.
Fry the rice in two tablespoons of vegetable oil stirring constantly - you aren't really frying the rice, just heating it up - sprinkle with soy sauce to taste. Move the rice to the edges of the pot and scramble four lightly beaten eggs (I scrambled mine in a seperate pan and added them at the last minute to heat up.) I also added 8 ounces of fresh bean sprouts, a cup of frozen diced peas and carrots a bunch of thinly sliced green onions and grated ginger and garlic to taste. And the BBQ pork chunks, of course :)

Paella