CityMama™

Things you should never buy

I was sent a copy of Michael Symon's latest cookbook, Live To Cook, by a PR firm. I know he's an Iron Chef and he's from Cleveland, but I've never seen him on the show and I just don't know that much about him. Michael Ruhlman speaks fondly of him on his blog and that counts for a lot, so I started reading his cookbook with interest.

I flipped open right to page 23 where I was immediately confronted with the heading, "Five Things You Should Never Buy." Symon lists:

• boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• lean turkey bacon
• butter substitutes
• beef tenderloin/filet mignon
• peeled, chopped garlic

I decided I like this guy.

I prefer bone-in chicken thighs to chicken breasts any day. I couldn't imagine making spaghetti carbonara with turkey bacon instead of guanciale or pancetta. Filets are tender but flavorless, New York strips are beefy but chewy. Ribeyes, however, are perfect, and Symon agrees. Peeled, chopped garlic? That stuff in a jar? Doesn't even taste like garlic to me.

Except that now that I've been doing Weight Watchers since the beginning of the year (30 pounds gone), I've been substituting my beloved thighs for breasts. If you pound them out and marinate the hell out of them, they're not bad. They're not chicken thighs, but they aren't bad.

When we do eat red meat, we've been eating leaner cuts of beef. I still can't bring myself to grill anything but ribeyes and when we have them it's a treat. I do cook leaner cuts of beef--in the Crock-Pot or Dutch oven, because they benefit from long, slow cooking.

And chopped garlic in jar? So not good. But the peeled fresh garlic that is sold in bulk in the produce section of Korean markets is a revelation. And Koreans should know. We use a ton of garlic, and that garlic is sold in bulk to make preparing kimchi (among other things) easier. Michael Symon: get thee to a Korean market. You'll see.

But Symon's list got me to thinking--what are some other things you should never buy? Never might be too strong a word, but if I given a choice, I avoid:

• Kosher salt—I think it tastes weird. Metallic. Bitter. I much prefer sea salt, Hawaiian (what I grew up on) and Maldon, my new favorite. I love the jaggedy flakes.
• Pre-ground pepper. Nothing takes the place of fresh ground.
• Canola oil. Canola isn't a plant, it is a made up word. (Canada + oil.) That freaks me out a little. It's genetically modified rapeseed oil. I use olive oil for everything. Even frying. I know what an olive is.
• Jarred spaghetti sauce. It is so easy to make your own.
• Tilapia. I don't know why but this fish grosses me out, and not just because it's a fresh, warm water fish (I'm an icy-cold ocean fish girl), but because it reminds me of the koi pond at my mom's house. Add catfish and farmed salmon to the list for that matter. /shudder
• And speaking of fish, water-packed tuna is something that never makes its way into my grocery cart. If I buy tuna it's packed in oil, olive oil, preferably.
• Whole-wheat pasta. I have tried. Really I have tried to like whole wheat pasta, but I can't help it. It's gritty and paste-y and just plain awful-tasting. The Italian part of me says semolina or nothing. I get my whole grains in other, tastier ways: brown rice, whole wheat cous cous, and whole grain bread.
• Red delicious apples. Mealy, and with that thick, bitter skin? Blerf. There are so many better kinds of apples.
• That blue yogurt that comes in a tube.

 What about you? What would you put on your list?

Let's Meal Plan Together for 10/19/09

I haven't been meal planning much this month since my mom is visiting.  When she's here I get a break from cooking as we go out to dinner or over to her house (she lives here and in Hawaii).  It's great because we get to try new places but it also means I don't grocery shop so the cupboards are bare and I am scraping together school snacks and lunches.

Also adding to the mix this week is that two of my mom's best girlfriends and visiting, it's my 40th birthday week, and we have a funeral to attend.  There's too much going on this week for meal planning, but I'd love to know what you are cooking so I can resume my planning in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I have some fall recipes posted at my Cooking Mama column on Delish.com that I'd love for you to check out.  If you don't see recipes here, you can always check over there for good stuff to cook.  This week I'm sharing recipes for beef with red wine, steamed fish, and ravioli with butternut squash.  A little something for everyone.

Lastly, as we approach the holidays, I am thinking of doing a month's-worth of vegan (or as close to vegan as possible) eating and dining. I received a copy of Tal Ronnen's new cookbook in the mail and I'm beyond inspired by the recipes and photos included in it.  I accepted it out of curiosity, and frankly wasn't expecting to like it because you hear the words "Oprah cook" and think "gimmicky," but boy was I wrong.  It's called The Conscious Cook and what I love about it (vegans close your eyes) is that many of the recipes seem really earthy and "meaty." He uses bold flavors and treats veggies as if they were heartier proteins (like meat), but still maintains their integrity. It's not gimmicky or preachy, and he even notes recipes that are good for people transitioning to veganism.  It's just a good, solid cookbook that you should add to your library especially if you are an adventurous cook who loves veggies.  I highly recommend it.*

Anyway, if you've been thinking of eating cleaner for the holidays let me know.  I'd love to do the vegan challenge with friends.

I look forward to seeing your meal plans, especially now that it seems like fall is here for good.

*Note, I did receive the cookbook for free, but was not compensated in any way for this brief mention.

Crunchy Broccoli Salad (or reason #96 to keep ready-made bacon on hand)

I normally prefer uncured, nitrite-free bacon (or pancetta) for me and my family, but I cannot deny the appeal of ready-cooked bacon. It's convenient, cooks up in seconds in the micro, and doesn't get your kitchen all greazy.  Bacon can be such a production to cook, and frankly, I don't like the clean-up.

Costco carries the thick-cut, ready-cooked style I prefer, and I keep the pack in my freezer and take out slices as needed.  I use it for:

• quick BLT's with avocado
• topping burgers
• Cobb salads
• warm spinach or Brussels sprouts salads
• crumbling over deviled eggs
• crumbling into potato salad
• crumbling into pancake/waffle batter
• oh! and for breakfast, alongside eggs or in egg sandwiches

One of the best uses for ready-made bacon is the broccoli salad below. I made it for two BBQs this weekend, and it was a hit both times. I'm sharing the recipe from the Essential Mormon cookbook in the hopes that you will try it and then order the book. It's a fun cookbook of tasty, simple, and satisfying dishes and is a delightful read as well.

BROCCOLI SALAD

You've probably had this, but not as good.

2 bunches broccoli (about 1 pound) cut into small florets
1 medium purple onion, finely chopped
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (I used Irish white cheddar)
6 strips of cooked, crumbled bacon
1/2 cup sunflower seeds or raisins (I used the seeds)
1 recipe Broccoli Salad dressing (1 cup mayo, 2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp. salt [I used less sugar and added pepper])

Place all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Serve immediately or later that day. (Keeps for about a day.)

To order the cookbook, click the icon below.

 

Leftovers

My mom and I went to dinner recently at Michael Mina in San Francisco, and I keep writing and rewriting the post trying to capture the meal. I can't do it justice, and to say it was one of the best meals of my life seems like a trite way of saying how much I enjoyed it. I'll just say that his amuse-bouche are, indeed, amusing (lobster corn dog, anyone?) and his trios (which have fascinated me ever since I read about them) are whimsical, clever, and delicious. Every course revolved around his signature triad of taste combinations. Mom and I started the meal luxuriously with osetra caviar (served with blinis, toast points, and potato pancakes) and chilled champagne. Three hours later dinner was done and I can barely remember what we ate. Kobe-style rib-eyes...foie gras...cheese...chocolate. It was divine in a way words can't describe. Highly recommend it, and if you go, do the wine pairing. It's worth it. (I can't say that because I wasn't paying...thanks, Mom!)

Cookbook fun.  The Essential Mormon Cookbook is a delightful cookbook that I've recently added to my collection. It's simple, unpretentious, and I can't wait to cook from it. I love that the cookbook is arranged seasonally and also by ingredients like apples and strawberries. It's heavy on the comfort food and one-dish meals which, if you have a family, you will appreciate.  Just in time for summer, I can't wait to try the salads, sandwiches, and snacks.

Do you know Kewpie Japanese mayonnaise?  You should!  It's the mayo I grew up eating.  The best part about it is that it comes in a cute, fluted squeeze bottle so you can use it easily garnish hors d'oeuvres or deviled eggs. You could seek it out in your local Japanese market, but I'll save you the trouble: Amazon sells it.  It's just like your fave American mayo except it's more lemony, less salty, and definitely creamier. It makes sandwiches extra tasty.

Lunch with Lidia

My pal Radzilla was kind enough to score us some tix to see one of our favorite culinary icons, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich.

I love her because she reminds me so much of my Italian aunt in Rome. I also love that her rustic, unpretentious recipes are accessible to every kind of cook. No one does simple, Italian comfort food better. And she's just as real in person as she seems to be on tv. 

I told her that I grew up watching PBS cooking shows (Julia Child and Jacques Pepin) and that now my daughter and I watch her together. She loved that we're sharing experience. "Cook with your children," she said. "Take fresh herbs and hold them up to your daughter's nose and tell her what everything is." Great advice for all parents.

Here's the day in pictures:

The menu.

The antipasti. Yum!

The main course. Blurry. :(

Dessert. A cannoli decontructed.

Book Rec: White House Chef

White House Chef by Walter Scheib is one of those books that you stay up until 3:00AM finishing. You don't want it in the house if you need to catch up on your sleep. Scheib was the White House Executive Chef under the Clintons and for George Bush's first term. The book is not so much a recipe book or food memoir as much as it is a first-hand glimpse inside the White House (so interesting!) and a commentary on both presidents (and their families) from a culinary perspective. In a word, it's fascinating.

The book can be summed up by the phrase "you are what you eat."  Scheib writes that the Clintons were adventurous eaters who tried everything. Hillary Clinton wanted the White House kitchen to be known for "restaurant-caliber" fine food that reflected the best of American cuisine. This was kind of a novel idea in the early 90's. Prior White House chefs had been steeped in the French tradition, which made no sense to the Clintons.

Clinton menus showcased the best of what America had to offer from locally-grown greens to Artic Char from Alaska to the best wines from California. Menus also featured decidedly American ingredients like bison and rattlesnake.

Scheib writes about his time with the Clintons with excitement and joy. I actually have a new-found respect for Hillary Clinton. Her ideas about food resonate with me and I finally feel like I have a way to connect to her.

His experience with the Bushes, however, was much different. The Bushes enjoyed spicy Tex-Mex fare and wanted it served often. Laura Bush wanted her menus to reflect "identifiable" and "unpretentious" ingredients. (No blue cheese, for example.) She loved the same dishes (beets, pea soup) and would have them served for every function if she could have.

George Bush has a very limited palate. He eats nothing green and no "wet" fish, "wet" meaning steamed or sauteed. He also eats just four sandwiches for lunch: peanut butter and honey, BLT's, grilled cheese (with a side of French's yellow mustard), and burgers. Per his request, all sandwiches were to be served with a side of Lay's potato chips and a pickle spear.

The Bushes had no "vision" about what kind of food the White House should reflect. They didn't appreciate fine food or eating and that's what informed their menus. Scheib was often presented with recipes torn out of magazines and he was expected to make the food look exactly like the picture.

Scheib writes that during his time serving the Bush's he was relegated to serving "country club" or "institutional" food. His talents were underused and ultimately he became unhappy.

I'll leave you there to find out what happens next. I highly recommend this book. It's a page-turner for sure.

Penne with Spicy Salami Sauce

I know this sounds totally strange, but trust me, it's good.

One of the cookbooks that every parent should have in their arsenal is Joie Warner's No-Cook Pasta Sauces. Shoot, I bought it long before I ever became a parent because I love uncooked sauces. Using her cookbook you can make wonderful pastas even in the warm summer months. Yes, you still have to boil water for the pasta, but you can escape from the kitchen since the sauces cook themselves. Then you can sit outside and enjoy your dinner as we did when I made the uncooked salami pasta.  My recipe is adapted from hers, but the technique of putting everything into a heat-proof bowl is hers.

PENNE WITH UNCOOKED SPICY SALAMI SAUCE

Put salted pasta water on to boil.

Meanwhile, in a heatproof bowl combine:

• 2-3 glugs of fruity olive oil (use your best olive oil for uncooked sauces, you want the flavor to shine)
• 2 pats of unsalted butter
• 1 clove of garlic, pressed or very finely minced
• 8 ounces of "gourmet/best quality" dry salami, Molinari if you can find it (don't use cooked or cotto, nor Oscar Mayer. Ask your deli for a good salami), sliced into matchsticks
• a good handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1-3 small dried red chilis, crushed (or omit)

Set this bowl on-top-of or next to the pasta pot while water comes to a boil and pasta cooks so that butter melts and flavors meld.

Cook one package of penne (or other short pasta) until al dente (usu. 1-2 minutes less than what the package recommends). Before draining reserve a cup of pasta water. Drain pasta and return to pot. Add the "sauce" from the bowl along with any pasta water needed to loosen the sauce.

Just before serving toss pasta with:

• a handful of torn fresh herbs (I used marjoram, oregano, and Italian parsley)
• grated cheese

I found that because the salami and cheese are so salty, no salt was needed. No pepper either.

Impulse Buy of the Week: Maya Kaimal's Tikka Masala Sauce

My mom gave me a couple of cookbook author Maya Kaimal's Indian simmer sauces as a gift when she visited last week. I made the Tikka Masala tonight and it was unbelievably delicious. I'm not an Indian food expert, I just know I love it, and the Tikka Masala was zingy with lemon and silky from the real cream.  I would definitely buy this and make this again. I used 4 chicken breasts and a couple of diced potatoes and it made enough for my family of four plus leftovers. I served it with fluffy basmati rice and sauteed asparagus on the side.  Highly recommend, and the kids asked for thirds.

On Nigella Lawson

Went to the library today and checked out three cookbooks, one of which was Nigella Lawson's Feast. I love her for so many reasons. That she cooks her hams in Cherry Coke, that she loves roast chicken and cheeseburgers and 4-minute eggs. That she eats from the fridge. That she is an unapologetic carnivore.

She never takes herself too seriously. (I cannot abide food snobs.) She is wry and witty and, let's face it, beautiful. Her cookbooks are the only ones my husband flips through and I'm not sure he's looking at the recipes... Plus, her pasta with chili, crab, and watercress is perfection on a plate.

I love to cook holiday meals and I can create any reason to throw a party. For that reason, reading Feast this afternoon was truly a joyful experience. It covers every occassion from Christmas to kids' parties.

I found myself nodding along to and agreeing with so much of her writing.  Sometimes I feel like no one else understands my obsession with cooking and why it's "easy" for me to cook what I think are great meals most every day. Cooking for my family is a pleasure in every sense of the word.  Lawson says,

I know quite how smugly idiotic it sounds to say that every meal should be a feast, but I certainly aim for that...What I eat myself or just the two of us eat nightly, when the children are in bed, has to be more important to the fabric of life than what I might choose to give a tableful of people once in a blue moon...I want to wallow in the ways I celebrate the comforting everydayness of life.

That's it right there.

Green Jell-O Salad

The next two cookbooks I'm going to buy (after I get paid, that is) are Whole Grains, Every Day, Every Way, and (on the other end of the culinary spectrum): The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations. I saw the latter reviewed recently in the January/February issue of Saveur.

One of the recipes in the magazine was the recipe for the green Jell-O salad.  I decided to make it for playgroup last week because I thought it would be a kid-friendly sweet-treat.  Except that both of my children turned their noses up at it and declared it, "disgusting."

In some ways, I agree. Not only do you have to love gelatin, but you have to love lime gelatin.  It's definitely not my favorite flavor, so when I make this again (which I will) I will probably use cherry, strawberry or orange instead.

P.S. I couldn't take a picture that made the salad look appetizing, so I left it off this post.

Utah's Famous Green Jell-O Salad

I'm going to add some embellishments so I don't get dinged for reprinting without permission.

Ingredients:

• 1 6 oz. box lime Jell-O (or other flavor if you don't like lime)
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 tbsps. of fresh lemon juice (I used one juicy Meyer lemon from our little tree)
• 1 8 oz- can of crushed pineapple + juice
• a pint of heavy whipped cream whipped until stiff peaks form (but one mama suggested Cool Whip instead)

Combine Jell-O, sugar and 1 cup of boiling water in a medium bowl.  Stir until granules are dissolved, about 3-4 minutes. Add lemon juice and pineapple. Stir well and then refrigerate for about 50 minutes, until mixture is syrupy. (Set a timer!)

Fold whipped cream into the Jell-O mixture then transfer into a 9 x18 inch glass (Pyrex) baking pan. Smooth top and refrigerate until set. Serve chilled. Serves 12 easily.