Food Friday, Sort of

Well, I at least thought of this post on Friday, even though it's Sunday and I'm just getting around to posting it.

About 15 years ago I spent a year in the developing world.  Daily life included many inconveniences, including power and water cuts, a lack of the type of entertainment I was used to and serious difficulties in finding foods that I never knew I would crave.

And crave I did.  One of the things I learned about myself while I was there is just how resourceful I am, and what a kick I get out of problem solving.  I made chocolate chip cookies with chopped up candy bars.  After a few tries I realized that some oat meal in the batter makes up for the gooeyness of the chocolate.  While I gave up a lot one thing I gained was cable TV.  This proved to be particularly challenging for my cravings because I was continually exposed to food I could not acquire. Two things I was particularly proud of making were a barbeque chicken sandwich (inspired by a TGI Fridays commercial) and English muffin bread.

The English muffin bread doesn't have the "nooks and crannies" celebrated in the add, mainly because it's not fork-split but sliced, but other than that it makes a nice breakfast toast.  And, if you've ever seen an English muffin recipe, you'll notice the bread is a lot easier to make.

So, when one of my favorite online expat forums was lamenting the lack of English Muffins in Holland I immediately thought of my English muffin bread recipe.  Funny, my tastes have changed and in the past year-and-a-half I have not once thought of making this bread, but I made some this morning and it was really good.  So, here it is:

2 teaspoons yeast
3 cups flour (I substituted about 1/3 whole wheat flour, as I do with almost everything)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup water
cornmeal & oil (for the pan)

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt and soda. Heat liquids until very warm (120-130 degrees Fahrenheit).  Add liquid to dry mix and beat well.  Stir in remaining flur to make a stiff batter.

Put in greased, cornmealed loaf pan (or mound on a making sheet).  Cover and let rise for 45 minutes.  Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes.  Remove from pan immediately and let cool.

[Pretty sneaky post, eh?  Not mentioning once my near 4 month absence from the blog.  I'm working on a post that explains that, so stay tuned.]

Food Friday: Our Boy Makes Us Breakfast

A couple of weeks ago M decided he was going to make us breakfast and there was no talking him out of it.  Basically, he scrunched up a tortilla in his hand and served it with a little peanut butter spread on it, garnished with some apple slices.  This is a variant for "breakfast burrito" which we often serve to him, a lover of the tortilla.

It really wasn't that bad, but we did bin some of it when M walked out of the room.

Looking pretty proud of his breakfast creation.

Food Friday: Beer Can Chicken

I've never made that thanksgiving dish with the winter squash and marshmallows.  My favorite white trash food is Beer Can Chicken. I saw someone make this on the Today show about 10 years ago (it might have been Bobby Flay, but then again it might not have).  He had special seasonings he used and did it on the grill, but basically I just adapted my regular roast chicken recipe and use a half full, opened-with-a-church-key beer can as an upright roasting rack.

My delicious roasting chicken, next to the pot of brown rice I also cooked in the oven so we could go to the playground while it cooked.

I hadn't made this in a while, basically because in the States we didn't often buy beer in cans.  I made it Monday and it was delicious!  I seasoned the outside with onion powder, garlic powder, salt and paprika, removed the top of the beer can by punching it about 4 times with a church key, poured out about half the beer and plunked the chicken on top.  I roasted it for about 90-100 minutes at 175'C, which is about 350'F.  Served it with some brown rice and green beans.

And here's  a big Thank You to my friend Devina, who watched M on the playground for 15 minutes so I could get it started.

At dinner, when I told M how it was cooked he said, "I'm not eating THAT," but when I reminded him he already tasted it and seemed to like it, he changed his tune and said, "I get to taste BEER!"

Food Friday: Fast Food French Style

The day we arrived in Paris we were all a little tired to consider finding a restaurant.  Luckily our hotel was not only equipped with a kitchen and dining table, it was also located a couple of blocks away from a market.  We bought a delicious rotisserie chicken, roasted potatoes, some green beans (which I microwaved for the adults and served raw to the kid) and a bagette and voila!  Dinner is served.

OK, messy table but delicious food (and yes, Dr. Torgovnik, I am taking my anti migraine vitamin cocktail, even while on vacation).

For a kid who prefers the crust cut off his peanut butter sandwiches, M has a very surprising love of baguette.

Food Friday: St. Patrick's Day

No corned beef and cabbage at our house this year, mainly because I wasn't motivated to figure out where to buy it.  I could have been motivated if Peter seemed interested, but instead he told me he wanted bacon and eggs and Irish soda bread.  Easy enough, except in a country which hasn't yet figured out that bicarbonate of soda works as a leavening agent in addition to an antacid.  Luckily I had already thought this through.

A couple of months ago I went on a baking soda mission here.  I knew the American store sold it but, used to paying 50 cents a box, the markup was too much to take.  Then I checked a drugstore here and bicarbonate of soda was 3 Euros for a teeny tiny package.  So, on our last trip to the States we brought back the one box from the apartment.

The other ingredient I had to figure out was buttermilk, but I was pretty sure it's called karnemilk because I overheard a conversation between a flight attendant and a passenger once about a karnemilk mix up (the package is red, so Americans tend to think its whole milk).  At the Albert Heijn I verified my hunch with a worker by asking if it was "sour" and "kind of like yogurt."  He confirmed my suspicions.  I used the River Cottage recipe, and learned that after years of being a pretty good soda bread maker (it was always our go-to homemade bread in our tiny Greenwich Village kitchen) I learned that I wasn't scoring the bread deep enough.

The result was probably the most perfect (so perfect it deserved 2 pics) soda bread I ever made.  My family LOVED it.

Food Friday: The Vegetarian Edition

Yum!  Lunch!  So good I ate 2 bowls.

I have been very busy with work projects this week, so what did I do today?  Embark on some interesting food projects!  A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook, "One upside to grad school is that my house has never been cleaner."  I think I could post, "I'm in the midst of several large consulting projects and my family has never eaten better."  Everyone loves a distraction.

Carmelizing onions.
Don't add salt or it will inhibit the carmelization.

So, today I made one new dish and one old favorite.  The new dish was Chinese tofu and vegetable soup.  I have been craving this for a few days so I had all the ingredients on hand from my weekly shopping trip.  This was so simple to make and absolutely delicious.  Flying by the seat of my pants (i.e. no recipe) I put about 3 tablespoons of chicken bouillon in a stock pot and added 2 sliced bok choi ribs, on sliced celery rib, one sliced carrot, 3 or 4 broccoli florets, one quarter of a red pepper and one quarter of a green pepper and a handful of pea pods.  I covered the ingredients with water and brought it to a boil.  In a bowl I put several large chunks of firm tofu and a few bean sprouts then served up some of the soup on top, adding about a teaspoon of low sodium soy sauce.

Lentils on the boil with a couple
of bay leaves and a pinch of salt.

This was absolutely delicious and totally satisfied my craving.  Die hard veggies could probably use veg stock or maybe just rely on the flavor of the vegetables.  Also, next time I'll add the pea pods at the end since they got a little done.

Since my little boy is very fascinated by "super foods" these days, I plan to serve him the leftovers tonight with his sardines on toast, and call it "Super Soup."  I feel like I got a full day's serving of vegetables, plus lots of magnesium in the tofu which is great for my migraines.  I suspect that's why I craved the soup.

Saran Wrap lined container

While this soup was cooking I also made what I like to call Vegetarian Pate, which is also known as Mandy Patinkin's Chopped Liver.   About 15 years ago I saw Mandy on a channel 13 cooking show called "Cucina Amore."  He made what I assume is a family recipe that calls for a cup of cooked lentils,    3/4 of a cup of walnuts, 3 hard boiled egg whites, one carmelized onion and some salt and pepper all whooshed together in a food processor.   Over the years I have perfected this recipe mainly in presentation, although I now use 2 whole hard boiled eggs as opposed to just the whites.  I originally served it in a bowl at a cocktail party and no one touched it because it looked very disappetizing.  I now blend the ingredients while warm them form it in a saran wrap lined mini loaf tin (or, since I left all those back in New York the plastic container from Albert Heijn ice cream).  This also makes it easier to slice for sandwiches once it has cooled, which are delicious with some lettuce, butter and grainy mustard.

Food Friday: Indisch Rijsttafel

My friend Claire is visiting from New York, and in addition to visiting about a million museums over the course of two days, we also went to Kantjil en de Tijger and shared an Indonesian risttafel, or rice table, one of the most exciting types of Dutch cuisine.  It was delicious, and I think the before and after photos say it all.

Food Friday: Fail

M and I set out today to make some simple oven baked onion rings from our new Better Homes and Gardens Kid Favorites Made Healthy cookbook.  The recipe calls for dipping circles of onion in egg white then fine, dry breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter, then baking them in a hot oven.

I certainly started out with the best of intentions and enthusiasm.  M and I went to Albert Heijn to pick up some supplies, but yet again we were met with blank looks when looking for a product.  This time it was cooking spray.  This isn't really something I bought regularly in the States, but I know I could find it just about anywhere.  Do we really not export Pam?  The shopkeeper, trying to be helpful, pointed me towards something which turned out to be a weird liquid form of Benecol.  I know this because I bought it.

The amount of onion the recipe called for

The amount of onions the crumbs actually covered

The second thing that tripped me up was how the breadcrumbs stuck--or rather didn't stick--to the onions.  I chalked this up to the breadcrumbs being either not fine enough or not dry enough--maybe both.  Certainly, they were not nearly plentiful enough.  The recipe called for 3/4 cup; I made about a cup and they "covered" (using the term loosely) about 12 rings rather than the 2 whole onions indicated in the recipe.

Sad, burnt onion rings

Not having the cooking spray wasn't such a problem, since it was only for greasing the cookie sheet. If I was thinking I wouldn't have even stressed about this since I prefer to use straight oil at high temperatures because it's easier to clean up.

No, the real problem with this recipe is that I overcooked it because I was in the living room watching Conjunction Junction with M and didn't hear the timer go off.  We ate the non-charred onion rings and all three of us enjoyed them.  I'll definitely attempt this again (maybe after I get a food processor or some type of tool that will allow me to make finer bread crumbs).

Food Friday: Some Recent Triumphs

P's Beautiful Turkey Pie

Last weekend P made a beautiful turkey pie from some Thanksgiving leftovers I had put in the freezer. This is a great recipe from Real Simple that he would occasionally make in New York, although our local grocery, even the big one, didn't have refrigerated pie dough. We used puff pastry and came out great. A big shout out to one of my oldest friends, Amelia, who suggested pie and also thought some crust initials would be fun. Peter insists he didn't read that comment, and M refused to eat the pie, but I really liked it!

Our freezer could use a defrost so have been trying to use up what we have.  Last week I made a delicious meatloaf out of some random ground beef, cumberland sausage, and cooked chicken that we had.  To that I added bread crumbs (am I the only one for whom bits of old loaves of bread pile up in the freezer?), a couple of eggs, a couple of grated carrots and a couple of grated cloves of garlic.  It was delicious, and turned into two meals (I put about a third of it in the freezer and we had it last night with pasta). Here is M's review. The first word he says is "delicious," but it's hard to understand through his food giggle and my late breaking idea to film what he was saying.

Partially thanks to Cheryl's suggestion and partially because I wanted to use up what I thought was fish stock from the freezer, I made some delicious salmon stew.

Mushrooms and Shallots

This is a delicious dish that is really simple to make.  You start with a small wild salmon fillet.  I don't know what the weight was; but the piece was probably a four inch square (for two).  I sauteed a bunch of shallots and mushrooms in butter and olive oil, added some green beans cut to one inch in length, then added the salmon and "fish stock" (it was actually the water I'd cooked some carrots in, but it worked) with a fish bouillon cube (the bouillon we get here is much better than US bouillon).  I also added a couple of tablespoons of savignon blanc since I had it in the fridge.  I cooked a small amount of brown rice separately and served up the dish with a little fresh parsley.

Salmon Stew, served with a chunk of fresh
baguette from our local French bakery.

M was served a deconstructed version which
was heavy on the rice (he dislikes fresh salmon).
This did not go over well.

Food Friday: Thanks Heston

On our flight to Boston we had the good fortune to experience Heston Blumenthal's "Height Cuisine" concept.  If you are unfamiliar with this (and the only reason we know about it is because we saw a BBC documentary about it last year), Michelin starred chef Heston Blumenthal, renowned for molecular gastronomy, while attempting to improve airline food discovered tht out taste buds actually don't function fully at altitude.  Combine that with the fact that an airline cabin is several times dryer than the Sahara desert and it's no wonder airline food is tasteless.

Our dear Heston discovered that there is a certain flavor, umami, the 5th taste after sweet, salty, bitter and sour, that works really well at 30,000 feet.  Umami is a savory taste in seaweed, tomato and Parmesan cheese. the wines and cocktails offered are also chosen because their favors work well at altitude.

My starter was a pheasant, duck and pistachio terrine with plumb and baby onion confit.  It was delicious, but admittedly I like that sort of thing.  It was served with a salad that had an intense peppery flavor thanks to the baby rocket and red pepper flakes.  It also had green and black olives, red peppers and something mild that I could not identify.  It was so flavorful that I didn't use any salad dressing although I didn't love the flavor.

For my entree I had a seared fillet of beef with a Parmesan crust with celeriac dauphinoise and cabbage and carrot.  I mistook the celeriac for potatoes au gratin but did genuinely enjoy them.  Maybe it was some parm migrating from the beef?  The beef had a nice flavor (although a little salty, even for me--Ms. salt Tooth).  It was also way overdone for me, but I reminded myself to get a grip.  This was, after all, airline food.  Cabbage was also worth a mention.  Chiffonade, and knowing what I do about umami, I suspect with a little seaweed in there.  I finished it all

All served with a 2007 red Boudreaux (my choice).  I don't know anything about wine (except that I don't like sweet wine) but the menu explained that fruity reds and crisp whites work well at high altitude. I normally don't like cheesecake, but it had a lovely crisp, buttery crust so I finished every bite.

Our little boy had chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes and a whole plate of fruit.  I suspect the kids meals aren't part of the "height cuisine" menu, but he ate a reasonable amount.  Plus, he ate while watching Madagascar so I was happy to have some peace to enjoy my nice meal.

Food Friday

Thanks to everyone who provided suggestions and inspiration to get me out of my rut.  Please, keep them coming!  I think my mojo is slowly creeping back as evidenced by googling "baked scotch egg recipes." Thanks to Cheryl's suggestion, I used some of the leftover Thanksgiving turkey stock and some chicken breast and mirepoix to make a nice soup. Perfectly timed because we are all in various stages of the first cold of the winter.

Surprisingly, M really likes soup. I can remember being served a lot of soup as a child and pretty much only eating bread for dinner those nights, so I find it really surprising that M not only likes soup, but after he picked the chicken out he told me he only wanted the broth. OK, fine, it was made with turkey, fresh herbs and potatoe water, so it's basically a meal in itself. There wasn't a huge amount of soup so Peter and I supplemented with some simple sandwiches of camembert that Peter brought back from Paris last week on baguette from our awesome local French bakery.

This weekend we've planned a pork roast for Peter's birthday celebration. We only have a few short days before we head home for Christmas so I'll have to build on My mojo in the new year.

Food Friday: The Rut

Help!  My menu plan looks much too much like it did in New York.  You know, when I had a full time job and we ate the same 12 meals over and over again?  Here it is:  burgers, chicken stir fry, eggs, pizza, pasta and tacos in various orders with the occasional fish or roast dinner thrown in there. 

Plus, I want to drum up some comments on the blog. 

So, I'm making an appeal for your favorite dinner.  Please leave a comment below indicating a meal we should try. 

Food Friday: Thanksgiving!!!

Last Sunday I made Thanksgiving dinner.  It was a huge success, mainly because my wonderful husband took M to Vondelpark for several hours.  It's not every guy who will ride a bike decorated with pink tulips just so his little boy doesn't have to walk.

The kalkoen (turkey) was 4 kilos, or almost 9 pounds and ridiculously expensive at 12.50 Euro per kilo.  It also required a fair amount of prep, including pulling the lungs out.  My Thanksgiving gratitude surrounded the fact I had recently watched an episode of Masterchef:  The Professionals in which they prepared a wood pigeon, so I could identify this organ.

At the price of prime rib, I was terrified I would ruin the turkey, but it turns out I cooked it beautifully.  I prepared it by rinsing it thoroughly and pulling out all the gross bits, rubbing it with a lemon, stuffing it loosely with a red onion, some sliced leaks, celery tops a couple of cloves of garlic and a few slices of lemon.  Then I rubbed it with olive oil and a mixture of course salt and paprika.  I placed a piece of british bacon on the breast and back and trussed it.  Thankfully the legs fit nicely in the little flap of skin on it's bottom and the wing tips were already missing, so trussing it was really easy.  I cooked it breast down, started it at about 450' F, then roasted it for a couple of hours at 350' F, then turned it over and convection roasted it for about a half hour.  It was moist and juicy and flavorful.  Sorry, no photos.  I was a little busy with the cooking and totally forgot!

I also made cranberry sauce (this was supposed to be an activity for M and his friend West Coast L, but they basically snubbed me when it was time to make the cranberries, so I ended up making it myself.  It came out really nice despite the fact that it had a very strange smell during the cooking process (maybe this is normal--I had never made cranberries before).

The stuffing came out great, especially since I totally winged the recipe.  Mairtin also made a special "kid stuffing" from the base of sausage and bread, adding nuts, raisins and apples, but no seasonings.  The sweet potatoes I bought weren't really sweet potatoes, but the mash peter made was great.  I was challenged by oven space, even in my huge oven, so I only cooked part of the pumpkin, and improvised a microwave recipe.  It was OK, but a bit underdone.  The green beans were good, seasoned with a little lemon zest.

I served it with a pinot noir.  One of the bottles broke as I opened it, but there was plenty for the four of us in one bottle, especially since one guest preferred white wine.

For desert we had HEMA appelvlaai (pictured)  with some cream that Peter whipped by hand.

Food Friday: Instant Read

So, evidently there is something about Amsterdam that's inhospitable to instant read meat thermometers.  Mine died the moment I moved here.  Peter insists it just needs a new battery, but there's something about the way it doesn't change temperature reading that makes me think it's more than that.

I tried to find one at Blokker, which is my source for nearly everything, kind of like the Dutch answer to Bed, Bath and Beyond.  No luck.  So when I finally went out to Gelderlandplein, our local mall, I was pleased to see they have a cooking store.  I am so desperate for a new instant read I dragged a very reluctant M into the cooking store with me.  I clearly asked the guy for an instant read, and he showed me thermometers with giant faces, circa 1970.  You know, the type that would dry the s*%t out of your roast?  One of those. I clarified INSTANT READ.  They didn't sell any.  (despite this fact, the store looked great.  I didn't get a very thorough look because M was a little distracting, but I did see a little rotating stand for decorating cupcakes which looked kind of interesting, and I'm looking forward to going back on my own).

I suspect it may be that the Dutch don't make roasts .  Either they don't make roasts at all, or they favor more of a pot roast.  I'm also having a similarly difficult time finding a roasting pan or roasting rack.  Having the proper cooking tools is so important. I don't know how I thought I'd make cooking my "project" this year without them.  Peter returns from New York tomorrow, hopefully with a few of my non-electric cooking tools!