Author: laura k

Cold Day, Roast Chicken, Raw Vegetables?

These are actually raw

For Christmas this year, I got a digital meat thermometer, the kind with a wire that attaches the probe to a fancy digital read out. I thought, “Finally! I can stop undercooking my roast chickens!” Yes, it’s the sad truth: I am a disaster when it comes to roast chicken. I can never manage to cook them all the way through, no matter how long I leave them in the oven, no matter how clear those thigh juices appear to run when I prick them with a fork. I start cutting them up and realize I have to immediately throw them back in the oven, in their half mutilated state. It’s disappointing, and not very photogenic. This digital thermometer was going to change all that.

A few weeks ago, my good friends over at Festivus Gastronomicus had a little moving sale (because unfortunately for everyone in Boston they are heading back to L.A.), and I ended up with their very lovely and large roasting pan. All of the elements converged, and I decided this was the week to roast a chicken. Well something went horribly, horribly wrong.

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Chicken Marsala at Long Last

Chicken Marsala

I have been thinking about making chicken marsala for a long, long time. I bought a bottle of marsala expressly for that purpose months and months ago. It might have actually been a year ago. But I never got around to making chicken marsala, for reasons I really don’t know or understand. I’ve never actually HAD chicken marsala, so I wasn’t entirely sure what a good recipe would look like, or what it is supposed to taste or smell like, and perhaps that uncertainty prevented experimentation. Who knows? But this week, I finally decided it was time for chicken marsala.

I’m not sure what my expectations were, not having had any previous experiences with said dish, but it was kind of not what I expected. I wanted the sauce to thicken up a little more. But honestly, other than that it was pretty delicious so I don’t have any real complaints. And it was easy peasy, so I’m not sure what took me so long. It’s actually a pretty fancy-seeming dinner requiring very little effort, which meant it was perfect for movie night with Mr. X. I love it when I can cook things that seem so much more impressive than they are.

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It’s a Chili Party!

Chili stuff

Crystal has been waiting patiently all week for me to write about the second annual (third?) chili party, which was held last Saturday night. I apologize for the delay, but I got pretty wretchedly sick this week and could barely figure out how to type, let alone think of something interesting to say about chili. I also realized that I never bothered to take a picture of the final product, because I was too busy setting out dishes of cotija and making guacamole and cleaning the living room, which no one even went into anyway. That’s really ok, though, because my chili pretty much always looks the same, so you can just check out the pictures from the last time I made chili and you’re good to go.

To be honest, my chili wasn’t even the star of the show. Mr. X made an awesome pulled pork chili, and Laurent and Jen showed up with venison chili (!) accompanied by homemade biscuit bowls (!!) and toasted cumin crema (!!!). It was all marvelous.

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Bucatini with Shrimp, Spinach, and Tomatoes

Bucatini with shrimp

I have been looking for bucatini in the supermarket and the hippie mart and pretty much everywhere for years, but never managed to find it, until last week. Trader Joe’s started stocking bucatini, and I might actually have cried out in serendipitous joy when I saw it on the shelf. Yes, I’m that kind of crazy person at the supermarket. I had all kinds of glorious ideas for my bucatini, not least another, and hopefully better, attempt at carbonara. Then I went to Philadelphia for the librarian conference and forgot all about my bucatini. Until tonight.

Like many other people this time of year, I’ve been trying to get more vegetables and fish and other good things in my diet. I’m not sure if shrimp is even the kind of seafood that’s all good for you, but no matter. When you add spinach, everything is good for you, right? This pasta was improvised and random and really damned delicious. And bucatini? The hollow core makes it difficult to slurp up the wayward strands. Effective and graceful eating of the bucatini is going to take a little practice.

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It is Totally the Year of the Pot Roast

Pot Roast

One of my favorite food bloggers, The Pioneer Woman a. k. a. Ree, declared 2008 as the year of the pot roast, inspiring me to try my hand at one mid-western culinary stand-by I had yet to tackle. Mr. X could hardly believe that the simple perfection of a pot roast had never graced my kitchen, and to be honest, I could hardly believe it either. (And to be doubly honest, it still hasn’t; I made this at his house.) It’s not that I’ve never had pot roast before. I mean, I was born in South Dakota. But my mom wasn’t really one for cooking up huge chunks of meat, so it certainly wasn’t a staple dinner of my childhood. And I’m not really one for the huge chunks of meat, either. It never occurred to me to buy a huge beef shoulder or whatever it was I bought and throw it in a pot. Trust me, it will occur to me in the future. Often.

The beauty of the pot roast is twofold: It takes about three hours of oven time to properly cook a huge chunk of meat, enough time for your kitchen (or entire apartment, if you live in the city) to become warm and delicious smelling. This is splendid during cold, cold winters. And because you’re pretty much just leaving it in the oven for those three hours, the amount of effort you actually put into what amounts to a substantial pile of food is minimal. I like minimal. Oh wait, and there’s a third beauty: A pot roast doresn’t require a ton of expensive ingredients. I like inexpensive.

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Parmesan Shortbread? Oh hells yeah.

Parmesan Shortbread

Bon Appetit’s December issue included a beautifully laid out article featuring easy to make Christmas gifts from the kitchen (and man, those photos were enticing). I wanted to make everything: the spice rubs, the coconut dulce du leche, but most especially the parmesan shortbread, the perfect gift, they said, for cheese lovers. Which both Mr. X and I, as well as pretty much everyone I know, are. Before I flew out to San Diego, I made up a batch and brought them down to the JJ as a gift for my favorite bartenders, as well as wrapping up a few for the boy. I only ate one before giving them all away, and man did I regret it. So much so that I had to make another batch as soon as I got to San Diego.

I do have to admit that this particular recipe is perfectly flavored, but the texture needs a little bit of work. They are just a little too buttery (and you thought that wasn’t possible). They don’t have the density that I really love in shortbread, and I suspect that if you added just a little more flour, they would reach cheesy perfection.

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Bad blogger, bad, bad blogger

I don’t know where the rest of December went, or the first week of January, at that. I was in San Diego, blissfully enjoying 60 degree weather and brunches on the back patio, and somehow, in the midst of all the delicious holiday food and friends and family and, did I mention, 60 degree weather, I didn’t sit down to share any of it with you, my probably-no-longer-so-faithful readers. I mean, I even brought my digital camera apparatus with me and everything, but not once did I get around to uploading pictures and writing out a simple recipe. I have failed at this whole blogging thing, it seems.

But now it is a New Year and I’m re-invigorated and yes, I do have lots to share. There was a lot of baking around the holidays, of course, including some new favorites and some old favorites and a not that great chocolate chip cookie recipe, which, well, I guess I won’t share. And tonight…tonight I’m making pot roast. One of my not-a-New-Years-resolution things I’m going to try to do this year is re-committing to my previous posting regularity, and sharing something here at least once a week.

Come back later today and there will be food.  I promise.

Peppermint Cookies and Cream Brownies = Crazy Good

Peppermint Cookies and Cream Brownies

I saw these on Slashfood awhile ago and I knew I had to have them. My housemates thoroughly agreed. So once I finished all the projects and classes and found myself in vacation, I went straight to Trader Joe’s, bought myself a box of Peppermint Jo-Jo’s (so much better than an Oreo will ever be) and baked up a plate of these insanely delicious brownies.

I didn’t follow the Baking Bites recipe exactly. Or at all. Instead, I found a basic brownie recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book and stirred in the crushed up peppermint cookies at the end. And wow, oh wow. They were the very picture of decadence. The creamy peppermint filling melted into the brownie, and the cookies got crispy and extra baked tasting, and all in all, this was a brownie experience well worth repeating. In fact, I only got one brownie before they disappeared, which is both testament to their deliciousness and a requirement for me to make them again. Soon.

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Saffron cream sauce, refrigerator pasta, and my new pizza peel

Pasta in saffron cream sauce

Now that the semester is finally over, I’m looking forward to some cooking and some baking and, yes, some blog posting. To kick off the good times, I have a few things to share that I actually did get around to cooking over the past few weeks. I know you’re thrilled.

That up there? That some extra special pasta with a saffron cream sauce. I had a similar dish in two different restaurants, and both times I swooned into my plate and vowed to attempt such a feat in my own kitchen. And for such an incredible dish, it’s actually pretty easy to pull off. Other exciting news? Pizza has returned! I finally got myself a nice, wood pizza peel. Any future disasters with sticky dough and topping-flinging have been averted, and I must say, the first pizza I made using this excellent tool was pretty sweet. The pizza peel is my hero. Pizza experimentation will resume in full force.

And last night? Last night was clean out the refrigerator night, and I managed to put together a delicious dinner in about 15 minutes, and achieve some winter-time comfort to boot.

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Guest Bloggity Blogger: Christa’s Turkey Chili Rice

Turkey Chili Rice

Don’t worry readers, Laura will return shortly for the next posting! This is the roommate, Christa, coming at you to report on my culinary undertakings this week. We eat well around here.

My story begins on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I had nothing to do and realized my love affair with the Food Network has been grossly neglected. I flipped the television on and settled in for an episode of Guy’s Big Bite (for you FN devotees, he’s the dude who won the Next Food Network Star Challenge a while back). He was doing a bunch of stuff with turkey, and one recipe in particular caught my eye and called to my growling stomach. I’ve been known to enjoy both chili and rice on their own, so how could a meal that combines the two be bad, I thought? Well, as we all soon discovered, it can’t.

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