Sopa del mezcolanza

...or, "hodgepodge soup".

Yeah, I've already failed at meeting my once-a-week blogging quota. And I don't fucking care! God, it's so liberating to just admit that instead of apologizing and making excuses. I have been cooking here and there, but nothing new or interesting. I can't be a genius all the time.

I made a vat of jambalaya with arborio rice on Monday (not even with any interesting meats, just chicken, andouille and shrimp). Oh, last night I fried some salmon croquettes and made some arancini with leftover jambalaya. That was pretty good. I did have a few failure piles that you would've enjoyed laughing at, but I really just didn't want to go through the rigmarole of the whole food blogging-it thing. One was frozen homemade chili on a pile of boxed mac and chee (hurried together after amateurishly burning the original dinner: linguine with what would've been a carbonara with caramelized onions and collard greens). The other was, in retrospect, eerily similar to Oswalt's original failure pile (served aptly in a sadness bowl): a blob of mashed potatoes topped with a slurry of gravy, shredded chicken and mixed vegetables (the canon Flav-R-Pac mélange of corn, pea, carrot, and lima bean niblets). That the chicken was not in "popcorn" format and lacked a cloak of grated cheese was the only detail that separated this dinner from that KFC abortion.


This is, for all intents and purposes, minestrone. But I wanted to tweak things a little by going Spanish with the flavors instead of the classic (read: run-of-the-mill) Italian minestrone. I used my canned homegrown heirloom tomatoes (supplemented with a bit of leftover arrabiata sauce), so it's even got a little hoity to go with my as-of-late, lackluster toity. I rendered some linguiça (yeah, yeah, but I didn't have any chorizo) in a little olive oil with diced carrots and a sofrito of garlic and onions, my aforementioned tomatoes and some piquillos that were on the brink of growing a beard in the fridge. I dusted the whole lot with some pimentón and some thyme. In went a handful of Trader Joe's Harvest Blend (a melange of Israeli couscous, baby garbanzos, orzo and red quinoa) to soak up some of the flavorful orange grease. A glug of budget tempranillo supplemented the chicken stock, salt and pepper to taste, and away we go.

Serve with a tempranillo and some appropriate toasty, cheesy bread product (ours was a cheesy breadstick, similarly procured from Trader Joe's).

Feijoadas grandes

Last summer I was totally knocked up and not good for much. Thank god I still had the presence of mind to a) grow a vegetable garden that included scarlet runner beans and b) utilize some of October's nesting instinct to harvest all of the beans and dry them instead of squandering all that precious energy on retarded shit like vacuuming all of the lampshades.

Scarlet runners (Phaseolus coccineus) are one of my favorite garden plants. I've been growing them for awhile, both for their beauty and their flavor. Hummingbirds love them (in flower), and they make a tasty alternative to flagiolets for cassoulet. They resemble a butter bean or a cranberry bean in flavor, but for this application - in fact, Brazil's answer to cassoulet - I was shooting for a more fashionable alternative to a black bean.

Feijoada is the national dish of Brazil, but variations exist in Portugal as well. Brought to the country by slaves, it traditionally uses black beans and less-popular cuts of pork such as snouts, ears, and trotters. As is typical of peasant fare, the dish has evolved over the years to include a wider variety of meats (depending on the cook and the country in which she lives), though still primarily features pork products cooked with black beans. Mine uses smoky piggy meats such as linguiça sausage and smoked ham shank, a Mexican langoniza (like chorizo, but with beef and pork), bacon and corned beef brisket (looked for carne seca, but was unsuccessful).

Since mine had only been dried for a few months, they didn't need much soak. I let them sit long enough for the skins to wrinkle, though I could've left them overnight. I didn't see the need, though, since I was planning on using a pressure cooker for at least part of the cooking. I think I probably had about 2 or 3 cups of dried beans all together (they filled a pickle jar 3/4 of the way).

I heated my large crockpot over medium-high heat and added 1/4 lb of bacon, one whole linguiça sausage, 1/2 lb of langoniza (left whole) and a 1/2 lb corned beef brisket (without the corning spices) placed fat side down to render out that tasty fat. Meanwhile, I chopped a large onion and minced 4 cloves of garlic and added them to the pot to brown in the rendered fat. I tossed in 4 bay leaves and a dried red chile and then the beans, the ham shank and about 3 or 4 cups of water (I didn't think to measure). You really don't need to add any salt because the meats contribute plenty, but besides that, salt toughens the beans and stalls cooking. You can always season at the end if your arteries really need a stiffy.

I cooked the whole lot at between 10 and 15 psi for about 30-45 minutes, until the beans were tender and the ham shredded off the bone. The beef should be tender enough to yield to the slight pressure of a knife; slice it and the sausages into thick slices and luxuriantly drape the meats over the beans.

Serve with rice, collard greens, orange slices and caipirinhas (a cocktail of cachaça, sugar and limes).

Moroccan Chickpea and Carrot Stew

...or, Back in the Saddle Again

Zephyr is now 8 weeks old, and I'm starting to get the hang of having him around. That said, cooking still takes me a bit of planning (unless I opt for yet another "pasta night" or "takeout night"). This is why I've decided to start doing what busy moms and dads have been doing for generations: the one-pot meal. Yes, I feel like a failure admitting it, but the one-pot meal is kind of a Thing.

Not just for cowboy camping anymore, a humble pot of beans (chickpeas, in this case) can be elevated to something you actually want to eat with the simple addition of a few choice ingredients. Carrots, shallots, garlic, homegrown heirloom tomatoes (that I canned during my nesting frenzy last fall), ginger, cumin and cardamom all combine easily with garbanzos to make a hearty, warming stew fit for a dark January Thursday.

I started mine early in the day and let it simmer over a low flame to thoroughly soften the dried chickpeas. The softly spicy scent of ginger, cumin and cardamom floated through the house all day, stimulating my postpartum appetite and filling me with a sense of Having Done Something.

Enjoy with warm, buttered flatbread and a chewy, raisiny garnacha.

*****

Unless you take it to its hallucinatory extreme, sleep deprivation is not great for creativity. Preparing meaningful food, presenting it artfully and writing about it thoughtfully require both a rested mind and free time, for which new mothers are seldom known. Zephyr occasionally grants us a 4-hour chunk or two, but my evenings are generally broken up into 2-3 hour naps, interspersed with dozy, twighlit nursing. Being a good blogger means getting a good night's sleep, and this rarely happens these days. At this point, it's either slowly getting better or I'm slowly getting used to it.

As days lengthen, though, I'm finding myself more interested in thinking about things like combining ingredients instead of just filling my time with such enthralling activities as staring at the baby or waiting for Scott to get home from work. I am setting a goal for myself to update both of my blogs once a week - let's see how I do.

Roasted parsnip soup with bacon and caramelized leeks

I am so into the toasty-crouton-on-soup thing right now. It's the reason for soup, almost, to get crispy bread and buttery, melty goodness into my gaping maw. This soup is of typical creation myth: too lazy for a trip to the store, too much good shit going bad in the fridge (this time, leeks and a bag of baby parsnips) and cold weather. This one was delicious and even worthwhile in its own right. But it didn't come without snags. Does anything good ever?

I got this soup started on Tuesday. Tuesday was a gym day, and I always try to eat something somewhat conscientious on gym days, so "a roasted vedge soup it would be", I'd decided. We got home from the gym, and I rushed to the kitchen to peel an entire bag of baby parsnips (20 minutes), shallots (prolly only 5 minutes but I swear it feels like the lifetime of ten thousand kings) and a few cloves of garlic, and then washed and washed and washed the leeks after splitting them and chopping them into rough spears (another 15 minutes). It's going on 7:30, and I'm just now getting this shit into the oven for its requisite 45 minutes of roasting.

GAH. Finally, the roasting is done. The house smells amazing. The leeks are crispy like they've been in a campfire, all ashy and shit. Not good. I try to simmer the whole thing in chicken stock and a little bacon, but it occurs to me that I'll need to flesh this soup out a bit, but have nothing to add any body (not even motivation to go the store). It's 8:35, and I almost start to cry with the realization that it'll take another hour before this soup is really edible (let alone good).

I stick the soup, pot and all, into the fridge and we go to the trashy Italian-American restaurant around the corner for tortellini and pizza instead.

The next day, I pull the pot out. I'd gone to the store this time, for a little loaf of seeded baguette, a pint of cream and some more leeks. I pull out the bacon, and simmer the soup for an hour (it's only 6:00 this time!). Clean the one of the new leeks, slice into a near-chiffonade and slow-sauté with a pinch of salt over low heat until completely creamy and melted. Add a splash of cream to the soup (maybe a couple) and whiz it smooth with the immersion blender. Add the leeks and the chopped bacon, a splash of red wine vinegar, some salt and white pepper.

I sliced the baguette thick on the bias, and toasted both sides in the buttery leek pan, then floated them in the bowls of soup, topped with shredded Pecorino and Madrigal (and some French-fried onions for shits and gigs), then put the tray of bowls under the broiler for a minute or two.

Serve with a brambly Côtes du Rhône and smug criticism of Top Chef contestants.

Split pea soup with pancetta and ham

I should just go ahead and change the name of this blog to Soup and Brekkie, cuz I'm on a fucking kick. Soup is a basic thing, though, and anyone can make excellent soup if they're willing to keep bags of bones and carcass in their freezer. If they're not, though, they can still crank out a reasonably fantastic split pea.


Split pea soup doesn't even require stock to be awesome. The peas bring plenty of flavor of their own, particularly when combined with a (celery-less) mirepoix of minced carrot and onion, ham and pancetta. Render the pancetta in a drip of olive oil, then brown the mirepoix in the bacon fat. Add the diced ham and the split peas, and stir them around to coat in the fat (sorta like making risotto). Add a couple bay leaves and thyme sprigs, then a bunch of water. Simmer for an hour (stirring once in awhile), or until the peas are softened but still retain their shape when stirred. Salt and pepper to taste, and stir in lots of chopped parsley and mint. I like extra mint and black pepper in mine.

I made some fatty croutons from some leftover pugliese (although I lied to Peter and told him it was ciabatta, just to fuck with him). Just cubed and browned in butter with a crunch of salt and some thyme, and there was a nice textural contrast always welcome in a bowl of soup.

Enjoy with early pajamas and a mug of budget chardonnay.

Minestra al pomodoro e pesto

It's finally soup weather. We've gotten back to the sodden, gloomy, winter weather that makes people slit their wrists when they move here. I love it. It's damp and moldy, and it smells like warm compost and fecundity again after all that stupid Arctic Blast nonsense. Snow and ice doesn't make me crave soup, it makes me crave hard liquor and sweets, preferably combined. Soup in rainy weather, however, is the pink in my cheeks.

This is Soup. It is a rib-sticking bowl of salubrity that chases the hate away. I wanted a minestrone-type affair, but don't really care about beans enough to make room for them among the sausage and tortellini. If you want a vegetarian-ish version of this, by all means, omit the sausage. But everyone knows that vegetarians will lose the fight against the zombies when the end times come, so you may as well start building your strength and perfecting your aim.

This is a soup of leftovers and fridge-purge. Bulk pork Italian sausage got browned with leftover chopped onions, red peppers and chopped mushrooms. Tubs of fire-roasted tomatoes (puree with a half a can of tomato paste and a glug of budget Syrah) chicken stock from the freezer sauced it up all brothy. Tortellinis in, and after they softened up a bit, Blue Lake green beans and choy sum joined the party. A moment later, half a tub of leftover arugula-pumpkin seed pesto enriched the broth and brought some much-needed garlic. Soup's on.

Top with copious amounts of Pecorino Romano and a spoonful of pesto. Serve with olive ciabatta and Les Hérétiques. Buon appetito.

Elk sirloin chili with Beans

Any more, whenever I cook or even eat beans, I think of my buddy Ken Albala over at Ken Albala's Food Rant. He doesn't get as much traffic as all the Foodbuzz and Foodie Blogroll folks, which is a fucking shame, because he's actually a real writer. Of actual books.

One of such books is Beans: A History.

You ever find yourself reading some Pollan and thinking to yourself, "sure, this is entertaining, but I really wish he didn't dumb everything down for the lay audience"? Yeah, me too.

If Michael Pollan is coffee, Ken Albala is espresso. Ken is an award-winning food historian and author of such effervescent reading as Eating Right in the Renaissance; Food in Early Modern Europe; and Cooking in Europe 1250-1650. More recently though, he dabbles in what he deems to be "pop" food writing, but is, in my opinion, a meticulous examination of individual foodstuffs.

Beans is one such exploration, in which Ken chronicles the cultural and culinary significance of one of our most basic forms of sustenance, the humble legume. From the crippling classism faced by Medieval bean-eaters, to the role of toxic vetch seeds in combating famine in the 12th-century, to the bacterium that distinguishes natto from hamanatto, Beans delves into depths rivaling a thesis for its attention to detail, and for leaving no stone unturned. Beans is, in a word, thorough.

It's also pretty fucking entertaining, although I'll admit that the thing I like most about this book is its unflinching nerdiness. This is an entire book about the seeds of a single plant family. It's not just for scholars and botanists, though - Ken's enthusiasm is contagious.

Some of you are still doing your holiday shopping, and I scold you for your procrastination. However, you can satisfy the academic foodie on your list (or yourself) by picking up a copy of Beans or Ken's latest tome, Pancake: A Global History.

**********************************

Oh, hey, and speaking of beans, I made it to the store yesterday. It really wasn't that terrible - without that nasty sumbitch Old Man East Wind, it was actually kind of pleasant, bordering on magical.

Since I knew I had to carry everything I purchased, I made very edited choices. Milk, eggs and flour are already heavy, so everything else really had to count. A couple containers of frozen juice concentrate to drink with our vodka. A bag of pink beans.

We had everything else at home, so this wouldn't be too difficult. Catherine sent me a huge elk sirloin roast a few weeks ago (have I mentioned that I love that woman?), from which we'd eaten a couple of steaks and then refroze. I'd normally never refreeze a meat, but I was going out of town and figured it'd be better to risk freezer burn than for the whole thing to rot in my absence. Rubbed and double-bagged with the air smooshed out, it was absolutely fine rethawed, without a single indication of freezer burn.


I finely diced the elk and browned it with an onion and a few spoonfuls of homemade ancho chile powder, half spoonfuls of pimentón and garlic powder, and a good few pinches of homemade Berbere spice. I dumped in a can of tomatoes and the leftover tomato-roasted pepper soup from last week. Then I added a dribble of soy, a spoonful of gochujang and a few good pinches of MSG. Oh, don't look at me like that - it is pure, crystalline umami. It makes everything taste really good and I'm not sensitive to it.

I let everything simmer and stew while the (presoaked) pink beans cooked in unsalted water. Never cook beans with the tomatoes or in salted water, or they'll go tough. When the beans were tender, I drained them and added them to the pot, then added more salt and pepper to taste. While the beans were soaking up some of the good chili flave, I whipped up some cornbread.

Top with cheese, sour cream and minced shallot for best effect. I'm heading to the kitchen for some leftovers right now. Not too shabby, this "working from home" business.

Roasted red pepper and tomato soup

Working from home has its pluses and minuses. Minuses include feeling like you might literally explode from not having moved from the same few hundred square feet in more than 24 hours. Another minus is the constant distraction of cool shit like daytime TV, adorable cats and husband. A major plus, though, is being able to just walk to my kitchen to cook lunch instead of bringing crappy leftovers or shuffling over to cart row for a burrito (although I could really go for summa those insane perogi and schnitzel from the Tabor cart right about now).

With regards to feeding myself, I'm starting to get my sea legs in this whole snow day tip. I went from "holy fucking shit, we'll all starve," all manic stocking up at the grocery store and bingeing on tater tots and tacos lest I freeze from lack of blubber, to eating normal shitty weather winter food. And what better example of icky weather, thick-socks-and-blanket food than grilled chee and tomato soup?

Problem was, we didn't have any tomato soup. I had to make my own.


This would only pose a problem had I not canned all my dozens of pints of heirloom tomatoes last summer. This was the first chance to really appreciate the fruits of my labor. I pulled a pint of my golden Pineapple and Yellow Taxi tomatoes (blanched, seeded/peeled and canned with a few basil leaves), and a half-pint of roasted red bell pepper in olive oil and got a happy shiver when the vacuum seal made that delightful pop and sucking noise upon deflowering.

I heated up a pot with a drizzle of the red pepper oil and sauteed a minced garlic clove and shallot for a minute, then added the peppers and toms. I simmered for 5 minutes or so to heat all the way through, pureed with a couple pinches of salt and sugar, a tiny half-spoonful of good pimentón and a drib of balsamic vinegar. All together, it took maybe 10 or 15 minutes to bring this completely together.

Add a hunk of fresh mozz, a drizzle of red pepper oil and a pinch of chile flake. Serve with grilled chee sammiches. I did sharp cheddar and Swiss on wheat.

Chicken Gnocchi Soup

...or, Snow Day

We don't get much snow here in Portland. We're nestled so snugly between the Coast Range to the west and the Cascades to the east, and all that noise gets buffered out in our quaint little Willamette Valley. But once or twice a year, we get the veritable shit...er, snowstorm of Weather. And the city shuts the hell down.

Nobody goes to work or school on snow days. We all turn on the TV to check for road closures anyway, just to see some asshole on the news careening downhill, perpendicular to the road, taking out innocent parked cars in his wake (do yourself a favor and cue up Yakety Sax in another tab so you can watch the vid with a soundtrack). People always try to drive in this shit. People from sunnier climes (cough*Californians*cough) who think that driving up to Ski Bowl a few times a year qualifies as "driving in snow" experience. It's comedy gold, really, for everyone except the owners of those parked cars getting pwned on the side of the road. Here's to good insurance.

During inclement weather, I'm not so keen on leaving the house. I've been a bit slumpy anyway lately, and this doesn't really increase my motivation to leave my couch, let alone step foot outdoors. I don't feel like doing anything that doesn't involve a blanket and sweat pants, and am eating mostly total garbage like totchos (yes, that is nachos made with tater tots) and Blue Box with ketchup. I'm not pregnant, I think it's just the weather and the darkness. I spent 8 hours playing Chibi Robo yesterday, for fuck's sake. Ain't no cure for the wintertime blues.

Except maybe some hearty chicken soup with crunchy green beans, peas and carrots, chunks of creamy fingerling potatoes, cremini mushrooms and succulent chicken, and some tender gnocchi. The dumpling-like gnocchi sort of melt into the soup after awhile, making it nice and creamy-chowdery, and the broth is just shy of melted chicken demi glace, so rich and velvety, with plenty of fresh thyme and black pepper.

Serve with oven-warm rolls and Tivo'd episodes of How Clean is Your House.

Beef Stew

You know when you're feeling kinda tapped out, and multitasking isn't doing you any favors, and you just wanna curl up in a bowl and call it a night? Yeah, it's that time of year, isn't it. Scott made this stew the other night (he actually cooked!) for when I got home from the field, and after the gym I thought it'd be nice to just reheat a bowl of something instead of cooking. There wasn't quite enough for two full servings, so we decided to eat it on some nice, buttered egg noodles.

I was totally gonna make some croutons to go on top, but the batard was way too stale even for that, and I had to process them into crumbs and fry them to render them edible. The night Scott made the stew, I made thick croutons broiled with shredded fontina, but it was much soupier then and really needed it. The sad thing about stew is that although it tastes so much better a day or two later, the peas go all peaked and look like really sad shadows of their verdant selves.

Pickle-making isn't really a one-day feat, is it? I've been doing small batches every day, but the eggplant chutney set things off on sort of a bad foot. It's too thick to really get all of the air out, and so of course one of the jars blew out its bottom in the pressure cooker. I didn't realize it until I went to vent off some of the pressure when I smelled the chutney that should've been sealed up in the jar. Finally, everything cooled down enough to handle, and I was able to see the carnage of oily eggplant shreds floating around inside the pressure cooker. Ick. I had to wash all the remaining jars in soapy water to get the oil off, and scrubbed the pressure cooker before getting the next batch in last night. Tonight will be the red onion pickle.

Turkey Phở

This is such an easy way to run through that half-gallon of turkey stock you have gelling in your fridge, and it's a nice change of pace from the casseroles and sammiches. I'm sick of eating turkey, bread, mashed potatoes and gravy, and I'm sure you are too.

On Thanksgiving, we had a 16-pound turkey (for only 5 people), and I made 2 gallons of turkey stock from the carcass. This was way too much to store in my fridge or freezer, so I simmered the stock down to a scant 6 cups, and it really ended up with that velvety mouthfeel you normally associate with the unctuous oxtail broth typically used for phở. The large turkey also left us with a bag full of the confit legmeat and an entire roast breast with which to contend, and since turkey noodle soup is the third spoke of the Holy Trifecta of Thanksgiving Leftovers, I whipped up a version of phở gà, subbing turkey for chicken.

It takes a bit of time to prepare the broth, but it's worth it just for the way your house smells while it's simmering. Into a large pot, toss a few star anise pods, a 4" cinnamon stick, some charred/roasted shallots and ginger, some peppercorns and a couple of cloves, and two or three bay leaves. Toast these quickly in the pot until fragrant, then dump in the turkey (or chicken) stock. Simmer over low heat for an hour or so, replacing the water that evaporates. I also squirt in a tablespoon or so of nước mắm, and add a good pinch of salt and sugar.

Fill a bowl with fresh rice noodles (dried ones should be reconstituted in hot water for a minute first) and a fat wad of turkey meat. Ladle in the boiling-hot broth - this will heat the turkey and noodles and result in the perfect soup-eating temperature. Serve with mung bean sprouts, Thai basil and cilantro, lime wedges and sliced jalapeño, and I like a little sriracha hot sauce or sambal oelek and hoisin sauce on mine. Bon appétit!

One of those casseroles, revisited

I am hell of tired after working a 12.5 hour day, 6 hours of which were spent with the client (and although this is a good client that I like, I tire of my own good behavior and mouth-watching after about 45 minutes). I came home after driving three hours with a raging headache and a bit of nausea, and needed a little horizontal couch time before I could do anything.

But some of you seemed genuinely interested in my ham and cheese orzo casserole (gluttons for punishment, you lot), so I'll write the recipe for you as best as I can. This was a hip-shooter, so forgive me if it yields a slightly different picture for you. This, by the by, is why I rarely post any recipes, ever. I don't cook from them, and I don't write them as I go.

Ham and Cheese Orzo Casserole
Serves 4-6

I dunno, like two cups of orzo? I shook some out of my huge jar.
4-ish cups of chicken stock?
3 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup half & half + 1.5 cups hot water (or 2 cups milk, which we never have)
2 big handfuls of grated cheese - I used sharp cheddar and Gruyère
S&P
8 oz-ish of diced ham (I cubed up 3 slices that were 4" in diameter and 1/2" thick)
2 cups(?) chopped broccoli florets (it was one crown's worth)
2 baby bok choys sliced into chiffonade (you nudge this into every meal these days because you bought a huge bag, which is the only way Fubonn sells it)
a handful of green beans that you really should use up before they go bad
French fried onions (Trader Joe's makes good ones), or panko, or seasoned bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Cook the orzo in the stock, simmering gently and adding more hot water as needed, until all the liquid is absorbed and the pasta is just a nit past al dente. Remove from heat.

While the orzo is cooking, prepare the Mornay sauce. Melt the butter over medium heat and add the flour, whisking until blended and cooking until golden and nutty-smelling (this is roux, for the noobs). Remove from the heat and add the half & half/water (or milk), whisking until flawlessly creamy and lump-free (this is Béchamel, for the noobs). This step is expedited by the use of an immersion blender, FYI. Yes, I'm admitting it, and don't look at me like that. When the sauce is perfectly blended, return to the heat, reduce temp to low, and simmer and bubble for about 10 minutes, or until the floury taste is cooked out. Turn off the heat and stir in the cheeses (save some to sprinkle on top) and S&P.

Mix the Mornay sauce into the cooked orzo and stir in the ham and veg. Pour into your favorite hand-me-down casserole that your Grandma Laverne used to use (and was probably purchased with Green Stamps saved up from all those trips to IGA). Top with the remaining cheese and crispety topping. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the sauce is starting to bubble over and leave those nice browned bubbly streaks down the side of the crock, and the crispety topping is all golden and crispety.


Like I said, I can't guarantee your results. It takes a little finesse, this casserole business. If you try the recipe and it fails miserably (I doubt that will happen - it's ham and cheese and pasta, for fuck's sake), just let me know and I'll help troubleshoot.

A Tale of Two Casseroles

I've been cooking and eating a lot of casseroles and gratins lately. My little white Corningware vessel hasn't seen this much action since the Ford administration. Out of all of my crockery, it's by far my favorite. Not just because of nostalgia for Grandma Laverne's celery-cheddar-water chestnut casserole (which I flawlessly reenacted one Thanksgiving for my wistful dad, just for him to admit that he'd always hated it), but because it is virtually stain-proof. Nay, it is literally stain-proof. Okay, I also love it because it used to belong to Grandma Laverne.

Obviously, this time of year begs for bubbly shit coming out of the warm-your-house-up oven, but there's something far more primal about making and eating casseroles in cooler weather. It connects us to our aproned, canned soup-having ancestors in a way that DNA just can't. I was a frumpy housefrau in a previous life, I just know it, and casserole was my weapon.

Tuna Casserole

There's just no way to make this look good, is there? Maybe that's why so many kids hate tuna casserole. I always loved it, personally, which is a good thing since my mom made it on a semi-regular basis. Now, I make it pretty much exactly like she did, but I use a better brand of cream of mushroom soup and solid albacore. Everything else, though - frozen peas, wide egg noodles and crunchy topping - is just the same. Though I normally like to fuck with everything I grew up eating until its foundation is unrecognizable, tuna casserole garners my subscription to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of recipe adulteration.

The best part is the crunchy edge noodles. Or the sweet peas. Or the briny, flaky tuna.

Ham and Cheese Orzo Casserole

I know what you're thinking. "Again, with the melty cheese and French-fried onions." Well I can't help it, okay? I need to see shit coming out of my oven with bubbly sauce and crispety topping. I can't help it. Norm and his (adorably gawky) tween son Connor were coming over, and this kid's picky. Normally, I believe in punishing pickiness by sneaking loathed ingredients into every dish, but I like Connor (and Norm), and decided to play nice. I know Connor likes broccoli, if nothing else that's green, and he likes meat. And all growing boys like melty cheese and pasta. No brainer.

Okay, I went ahead and snuck in some chiffonade of baby bok choy and sliced green beans just to be a bitch. He didn't seem to notice.

So, casseroles. I probably have one or two more in me, probably for Thanksgiving, and then I'll seek help for my addiction.

Kare udon

Okay, this is a total phone-in. I will give the concession that I used homemade chicken stock, and sure, I poached the chicken breast with lots of fresh ginger and garlic, some sake, mirin and sesame oil, then added sliced shiitakes, Sweet Nantes carrots and delicate pearl potatoes. I even threw in some heirloom Italian pepper such deep carmine that it resembles raw beef. But this is hardly cooking.

Okay, I added cubed silken tofu, slivered scallions and sliced snow peas, and at the end I folded in some thick, chewy udon noodles (boiled separately so the broth wouldn't go all soapy-starchy).

Come to think of it, what I did was truly cooking, but the act of breaking a couple cubes of Golden Curry into soup made it feel like I was faking it. Sure, I could've just added some curry powder, MSG (yes, I keep a fatty sack of it in my cupboard) and a little sugar and corn starch, and I would've achieved the same result. But I used the cubes. And I feel like a dirty cheater admitting it.

I keep cheapie Gekkeikan around for cooking, but a nice bottle of Momokawa Diamond Junmai Ginjo (I love the cloudy Pearl Junmai Genshu in the summer) for drinking. I know it's probably sacrilege, but I heat osake in the microwave. In exactly one minute it reaches perfect blood-temperature.



Oh, p.s. I'll be in and out a bit until Sunday. My good friend Catherine Wilkinson from The Dish is in town competing at the Tillamook Macaroni and Cheese Cook-off. In case you're wondering, yes, she really is that hot in real life. Today I brought her chanterelles for her recipe, then we sat in the bar of her hotel making fun of Ilan Hall from Top Chef Season 2, who is emceeing the event. Catherine had been mistakenly calling him "Ian" all day, and couldn't figure out why he was so standoffish. For laughs, I went to the concierge and asked her to page Ilan's room to tell him he had two ladies waiting for him in the bar. He never showed up; probably because he is gay, or afraid of starfucking fangirls.

Oh, p.p.s. I'm planning a very special dinner for twelve of my closest friends this weekend. Elk roast with alder-smoked chanterelles, coho loukaniko with Fraga Farm saganaki and Hood River pear galettes with Douglas-fir needle ice cream will feature prominently. Stay tuned, and happy autumn!

Corn Chowder with Halibut Cheeks and Mussels

Okay, I really haven't been around much, and I apologize for being such a flaky friend and not visiting enough. In my defense, I have been out of town for work, with a spotty-at-best wireless connection (I used the hotel lobby to reply to my comments on Thursday). Also, I have a huge backlog of food and photos to chat about by now, and I'm getting a wee case of The Daunteds. But I think I'm ready to come out from beneath that rock.

Corn is in season, as are some of my favorite seafoods - Dungeness crab, halibut, albacore. New Seasons must be paying attention, because they recently started carrying the most coveted of halibut cuts, the cheek. Frankly, the cheek is the best part of all animals (Hank from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook knows what I'm talking about). I'll prove that later by showing you what I did with the smoked pork cheek from Pig Roast 2008. Oh, it is that good.

As much love as I have for New Seasons (I'm doing that thing where I pound my heart twice with my fist and throw out a sideways peace sign), their mussels can be kind of shitty. Remember how last time I said to be sure and check your shellfish? Well I didn't remember to mention that this is really hard because they bag them in those little mesh bags, then wrap them up all pretty in brown butcher paper so you can't see that no less than 20% of the mussels have broken shells (I counted!), or consist of nothing but broken shells. Why are they selling me broken, empty shells that I can pick up off the beach for free? The fuck.

Anyhoo, we've had a spot of cooler weather up here in good ol' PNW, so I jumped at the chance to make a warm, buttery chowder, this time with fresh corn instead of frozen. Corn chowder is so good with a little seafood in it (remember the coho chowder I made for Black History Month?), especially the sweet, tender cheek of halibut and succulent mussels, both from the northern Pacific.



When you cut corn from the cob (or even after just eating it off), do yourself a favor and save up the cobs in a freezer bag until you have enough to fill a pot, then make corn cob broth by simmering these in some chicken stock for an hour or so. This broth is perfect for chowder and my chicken enchilada soup ("Sopa del Fuego"), and is probably just delicious to use for polenta.

To make this chowder, just make slight adjustments to the recipe from February, subbing fresh corn for frozen, corn cob broth for seafood stock, leaving out the Thai spices and jalapeño, and using cream instead of coconut milk. Add a pinch of saffron. At the very last moment, add the halibut cheek (cut into bite-sized pieces) and mussels, and hit it with some chopped flatleaf parsley. Soup is ready when the mussels are open. Serve with buttermilk biscuits and a clean, citrusy white (we had a Castelvero Piemonte Cortese 2007 - an unassuming, $9 Bianco that is extremely decent for the price and didn't try too hard against the food).



Coming soon: What to do with leftover biscuits...

(Hint:)

Nabemono with udon

Okay, it's getting old now. It's the middle of June, and we're still expecting a high temperature of 60-65°. Are you fucking kidding me? I've been checking the National Weather Service to see just how far off we've been from normal June weather, and it's ridiculous. A couple weeks ago we had that freak 95°+ degree weather for two days (record-breaking high), but for the past week we've had an average of 7° below normal (that's ranging from 1-12°). Yesterday we reached a high of 58°. So what the hell am I supposed to do?

Make soup.

I have my requisite fridge full of strange produce: garlic flower buds, Okinawan purple yams (not really in the fridge, but you get it), tong hao/shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves), baby choy sum, chayote, king oyster mushrooms, burdock, ginger, scallion, and half a clove of elephant garlic. I also had a block of tofu and some good udon.

Nabemono is really just a basic hotpot of dashi, vegetables, tofu, and maybe some seafood, meat (e.g., pork belly) and/or oden (fish cakes). We ate motsunabe in Tokyo that included shiro miso and offal like tripe and other grisly bits. Nabe is food of the sumo, although it is very low calorie if you leave out the pork belly (and if you don't eat the whole pot, then get right to napping). The one serving of noodles contains more calories than the whole bowl of soup.

Nabemono
You can pick up a clay nabe pot with lid for about $10 at any Asian grocery store that sells dishes. You can use them straight on the burner, even though they make strange crackly noises at first. I'm going to try braising short ribs in mine next time.

Broth
5 cups dashi (recipe follows)
1/4 c mirin
1/4 c soy sauce or tamari
1/2 c sake
splash Chinese black vinegar or rice vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
3" ginger, cut into matchsticks
3" burdock, peeled and matchsticked
pinch salt

Quickie Dashi
5 c water
1 30g pack of dried bonito flakes
1 5" square piece of kombu, rinsed

Simmer these together for about 15 minutes over low heat. Strain.


1 Okinawan purple yam
1/2 pound of tofu (I like Chinese firm tofu because it doesn't disintegrate into the soup)
1 king oyster mushroom or a handful of shiitake (I add two dried shiitakes to flavor the broth)
1/4 chayote
3 or 4 garlic shoots
1/2 clove elephant garlic
handful of choy sum
handful of shungiku
3 or 4 scallions
4 oz. udon, cooked

Cut everything into bite-sized pieces and simmer starting with yam and tofu, moving on to the ingredients that require less time. Add greens and scallions last, then add cooked udon and serve. Top with togarashi to taste.