Author: laura k

Johnny Machete? Johnny Marzetti? Just call it delicious.

Johnny Machete

If you’ve been around here long enough you’ve heard me mention Gilmore Girls, many times. It’s one of the only television shows I’ve ever become addicted to (for longer than a week), and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve watched the entire seven-season series through not once, but twice. And yes, I own them all on DVD. I don’t really know what it is about those fast-talking, witty ladies, but I cannot get enough, and I’ve gotten more than one person (like, pretty much everyone I’ve ever lived with) hooked as well, so I know it’s not just me.

What, in the name of all that is good and holy, does this have to do with food? Well, other than the fact that those Girls eat a lot of it, there is one particular episode (in Season 3) in which a strange casserole is mentioned: Johnny Machete. Nothing is said except that it contains cream of mushroom soup, and come on now, every casserole worth its weight contains cream of mushroom soup. It’s not called casserole glue for nothin’.
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Creamy Parsnip and Chickpea Soup

Creamy Parsnip and Chickpea soup

I will admit it: I’m a little bit tired of soup. I’m extremely tired of winter, and of root vegetables and lentils, and of meals that are primarily beige and orange. I am ready for some tender, leafy greens. For zucchini. For tomatoes! Oh spring, you cannot come soon enough. (And yes, I’m aware that technically it is spring right now, but in my neck of the woods, it’s really not. It’s still cold and farmers’ markets are a long ways away.)

But you know what? Even though this is soup, and it’s made of root vegetables, and is pretty much beige and orange, oh it’s delicious. It is delicious enough that I feel a little less frustrated with winter. It is warm and silky and full of bright flavors, a little spicy, a little sweet. Eating this for lunch all week might help me to forget that it’s still not above 50 degrees outside.
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Moroccan-spiced Braised Root Vegetables

Moroccan-spiced Braised Root Vegetables

The end of February is a time when I start getting really tired of root vegetables. I’m longing for heirloom tomatoes and berries and fresh leafy greens. But this delicious bowl of spicy braised potatoes and squash brightens up gloomy February a little bit and makes me less resentful toward the tubers. As I try to eat more seasonally and more locally, I’m learning just how much more creative you have to be when it’s winter in New England. I generally roast root vegetables, but I started getting a bit bored with roasted potatoes, so I thought I’d try my hand at braising. And I am glad I did. This was fast and easy, and it could be a very versatile dinner: Different seasonings could make this a totally different meal. But these flavorings were spot on for cold, wet, windy winter.
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Michael Pollan at TED

I’ve talked about Michael Pollan here before. I consider his books some of the most life-changing books I’ve read, and sometimes I feel like I’m on a little personal mission to get everyone in the world to read them. This TED video is a great introduction to his ideas, and to the idea of truly sustainable farming. I grinned the whole time I watched it.

I hope that you’ll pass this video along. Share it with everyone you know! This one is definitely an idea worth spreading.

UPDATE: WordPress won’t let me embed the video from TED, for reasons I can’t quite fathom. You can watch it on the TED website for now. Hopefully I’ll figure out how to embed it when I have more time.

UPDATE AGAIN: The video is available through the YouTubes, which I can embed, so here you go:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPN1O03z8I&hl=en&fs=1]

Chicken with Green Olives, Orange, and Sherry

Chicken with Olives and Oranges

At the beginning of every month, I go through my back issues of Bon Appetit for that month and mark recipes that look interesting. I take note of things I want to try, and am always amused to find that something that looked great to me a few years ago no longer seems intriguing, and something I had no interest in the first time through the magazine suddenly stands out. This is one of those recipes: The January 2005 issue featured this Chicken with Green Olives, Orange, and Sherry in the FastEasyFresh column, and I breezed right by it four years ago and never gave it a second thought. And I didn’t know what I was missing.
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Black Bean and Wild Rice Soup

Black Bean and Wild Rice Soup

In my attempt to eat less meat and more plant life, I’ve been experimenting with vegetarian soups for the past month or so. I make a big pot of soup every Sunday and bring a bowl to work every day for lunch, and I’ve got my soup-making skills down now. I’ve become quite fond of lentils, and should probably start making my own vegetable stock because I’m going through the stuff like crazy. What I love about making soup is that you have so many opportunities to be creative. Once you have a basic formula down you can add and subtract and experiment, and make something completely new just by using different herbs and spices.

Black bean soup has always been one of my favorites. When I was in college I was addicted to Progresso’s Hearty Black Bean soup and probably ate it at least once a week. When I realized that I was four weeks into my soup experiment and hadn’t made black bean soup yet, I knew I had to rectify the situation, so I came up with this: Black Bean and Wild Rice Soup.
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Mahogany Glazed Chicken

Mahogany Glazed Chicken

I have a tendency to go through my printed recipe folder, pull out things I want to try, stick them on the refrigerator, and completely forget about them. Our refrigerator is pretty much covered in random stuff that none of us ever looks at, so I suppose it’s easy to see how recipes could be so easily forgotten. And every now and then one of us will go on a kitchen cleaning spree, and my tacked up recipes will be taken down and put on the counter, which is a nice reminder to cook them (and also not to clutter up our common areas with my random stuff).

This one had been stuck to the refrigerator for I don’t even know how many months before it was brought to my attention again, and I finally decided to make it. I originally saw something similar on one of those random cooking competition shows on the Food Network. I think it was a chicken competition, or something equally boring, but the winning recipe, Mahogany Broiled Chicken with Smoky Lime Sweet Potatoes and Cilantro Chimichurri, was very intriguing. Of course, true to form, I didn’t end up cooking the winning version but rather this Eating Well version, which is completely different, so, um, yeah, that’s pretty much how things operate around here.
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My First Sourdough Bread

Sourdough, sliced

Several weeks ago I teased you all with mention of my newly acquired sourdough starter. I nursed it back to health, waiting patiently to make my first loaf, and of course, the day I was all set to make it I read through the instructions and realized that you have to feed a starter before you use it, so that it’s fresh and active. I fed the starter, and then unthinkingly put it back into the refrigerator, where I suspect it promptly went back to sleep, or whatever it is that sourdough does that makes it less useful. So my project was delayed. I tried to do a little research so I might have a better understanding of my starter, but the interwebs were full of conflicting information. Shocking!

Well, this past Friday I finally got around to baking my sourdough. I remembered to feed the starter Thursday evening, and let it sit near the radiator Friday morning to ensure it was fully lively and ready to go. Then I got to messy work. And you know, even though the loaf didn’t turn out as sour as I hoped (it’s not San Francisco, after all), it is easily the best loaf of bread I’ve made yet. The crust is lovely and chewy and the texture is just right, not too soft or too dense. Next week I’m definitely trying out the extra-tangy version of the recipe that came with my starter.
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Chicken Braid? Yes, Chicken Braid.

Chicken Braid

My housemate, Hilary, gave me this recipe a few months ago, and I made it twice in three weeks. Those who know me know that I rarely repeat a recipe, no matter how good it is, so twice in three weeks is really saying something. Hilary says her mom got the recipe from Pampered Chef, but this recipe can be found all over the interwebs, with very little variation. I suspect it may originally have been one of those Pillsbury package recipes, as every version I’ve seen calls for packaged crescent rolls.

I did not use Pillsbury crescent rolls, though. I used puff pastry, and it turned out splendidly, perhaps, dare I say, even better? Key point, though: the first time I made it I used Trader Joe’s puff pastry, and the second time, Pepperidge Farm, and the Trader Joe’s was a far better choice. The sheet of pastry was a better size, it thawed more quickly, and the flavor was much more buttery and light. Just so you know.
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