Evacuation eats

This isn't exactly what to eat while you are evacuated from your home due to a raging wildfire, but what to eat when you return. When the town is hot and smoky and subdued, and "thank you firefighters" signs line the main streets, and you are thankful to do those mundane house things like mow your own lawn and sleep in your own bed. And guilty too, for that thankfulness, because you know that just down the hill, your neighbors are sorting through ash for their possessions and still grabbing food on the run in hotels and in friend's guest rooms. For a while, life's edges are sharp again.

When we came home this Sunday, from a sweaty weekend away—two adults, one baby, two cats, one dog on the run—we were ready for something simple, something soothing and cooling at once. We were hungry after days spent obsessively refreshing our browser. (Are we evacuated now? Are we evacuated now?) So while the baby napped, I made us all a completely bastardized version of Thai noodles based on a John Thorne recipe I found in an Organic Style magazine recipe booklet.

Ground Meat with Basil & Rice Noodles

12 oz. rice noodles, soaked in cool water until pliable, but not soft
peanut or grapeseed oil for stir-frying
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1 t. Thai red curry paste
1 pound protein in small pieces (I like tofu and chicken combined, both cut in small cubes)
2 T. fish sauce
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 T. natural sugar (or regular, if that's all you've got)
1 overflowing cup of packed basil leaves, torn into big pieces

Heat 2 T. oil in wok or saute pan at medium heat. Cook garlic and onions until they start to turn golden. Add curry paste and stir in.
Turn up heat and add chicken. When it starts to brown, add in the tofu and stir it around a bit, until tofu warms through.
Add fish sauce, stock, and sugar. Bring to a simmer and add noodles. Cook until noodles are soft, adding more stock as necessary.
Add basil and stir until wilted.

Serve with sliced cucumbers toss and chilled with a little seasoned rice wine vinegar.

Beets, the easy way

I don’t mind getting messy; in fact, I sometimes like it. Hands in soft dough, fingertips scented with garlic, rare meat resting on a cutting board in a pool of its own juices.

I also don’t mind a little labor in the kitchen; I’m one of those crazy people who find peeling and slicing and shelling restorative. I would go so far as meditative, but am pulled back from the brink of maudlin by a keen awareness that some of you are gagging at the redolent prose already.

Let’s get back into the world I live in now, post-baby. I could be pulled back upstairs by the wails of a mad teether at any minute—no long sautés, no delicate sauces that require painstaking attention. I’m tired (said teether)—hours spent shucking peas and mooning over pans of risotto are replaced by a quick 15-minute workout, a bit of reading, and an early, early bedtime.

So when I find a recipe for a beloved, messy, time-consuming favorite that makes my life easy, easy, easy, it’s a bit of a miracle. Like Jamie Oliver’s recipe for baked beets. No more peeling, cutting, prepping, making of dressing. Just a pile of beets in a foil packet opened steaming at the table or left out all afternoon and served cool in their juices. When it’s just the two of us, we slip the peels off (or not) at the table. Otherwise, it’s short work (really, they slide right off) and well worth the stained fingertips.

Essentially, you scrub small beets and throw them onto a large sheet of foil with fresh marjoram or oregano, smashed unpeeled garlic, salt, pepper, and generous amounts of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Seal up the package, set on a cookie sheet in a 400-degree oven for an hour or so, and you've got lovely beets in a fabulous sauce.

I served them the other night with Nigella Lawson’s easy breaded goat cheese medallions (breaded in advance and thrown in the oven 10 minutes before dinner) from Feast and salad greens with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. They're also good with chunks of feta cheese.

Cross rib roast

Operation freezer cleanout is in effect. We've got 3 spring chickens on order from the farm down the hill, and a half a pig and a lamb on the way later in the year. And a freezer full of odds and ends: leftover pound cake from the baby's first birthday, saved for the fancy trifle that I'll never get around to making; a few cubes of enchilada sauce, not enough to use for anything much; bread ends; smoothie fruit...

And a cross rib roast, the final piece of meat of a grass-fed, organic beef sampler pack from one of our local heroes. I loved the idea of a selection of roasts and marinating and grilling steaks, but the actual cooking was painful and protracted.

I used to be a vegetarian, until one day the smell of bacon-y goodness lured me back to meat. I'm still picky--and we save up for meat in bulk from farms we've visited. And beef still tastes a little too "beefy" to me most of the time. So I stewed, making amazing winter dishes with onions and red wine and served with thick noodles, until I came to the roasting cuts. What the hell do I do with London broil? Bottom round? Cross rib?

There was some greyness, some toughness, some regrettable stringiness. I started to wonder whether beef was worth it. Whether grass fed was at fault. Until I Googled "cross rib" and found Jim H. and the simplest recipe ever.

I put the roast in a bowl with a generous amount of soy, sesame oil, mustard powder, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, salt, and pepper. We stuck it in the fridge for two days, turning when we remembered. Then into pan for browning and a 200-degree oven. It did take about 2 hours--through bathtime and the grownups' cocktail hour--and we took it out when the meat thermometer read 130 degrees.

I let it rest about 30 minutes while I roasted chunks of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions with rosemary and olive oil, and boiled some red wine and a chunk of butter down in the pan for a sauce. The meat was ruby red inside, rich and soft and minerally. The way beef is supposed to cook up, I imagine.
W., who has happily and enthusiastically eaten countless veggies and pasta for the past 10 years, said it was the best thing we'd ever made. (I vigorously defended lamb loin chops and homemade gnocchi, a pre-child special-occasion thing. But 15 minutes of actually work for "the best"? I'll take it.)

We cooked a 5-pound roast, which sounded like too much. But the baby loved the well-done edge pieces the next day, and W. ate thin slices in sandwiches with mustard and horseradish sauce. I cut the rest into strips and warmed it with sliced onion and red bell peppers that had been slightly blackened in a dry cast iron. A little squeeze of lime and into a warm tortilla with salsa, cilantro, and sour cream--fajitas. Really good. So simple.

Cup of trouble

Our coffee has been a bit posh lately. We've been using beans from Trouble--we just got back from visiting my sister and brother-in-law in SF's Outer Sunset. And for us, a trip to the city means coffee, good coffee. If we can bring a bit of the city back to the sticks with us, so much the better.

W. has decided to switch to the French press, now that we're taking the coffee all seriously and such. A Sunday morning while the baby was napping, he followed, precisely, the incredibly anal instructions for press pot coffee at home given by Stumptown. "Aggressive pouring" and timer and all.

We poured a little cream in, and goddamn if that wasn't the best coffee we've ever made. And now we've ruined it--a standard drip pot early on a weekday morning is just not the same.

Was it worth it, opening Pandora's bag of Trouble? The washing of the French press, the finicky timing, the slight sludge at the bottom on the cup, the sudden pressing need for a burr grinder? One more thing to fuss over in the morning?

It just might have been...

(We've downsized the weekend breakfast to include frozen chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's to allow for the coffee.)

*Cool Photoshop brushes courtesy of Jelena Jovovic.

Dominican chicken

I've got a couple go-to meals, the ones I hand out when friends who don't cook ask me for recipes. They never fail, they come together easily, and everyone loves them. Bonus points for make ahead and leftovers.

Dominican chicken is one of those. It's a versitile basic, more an ingredient than a dinner in itself, so leftovers can be tarted up and feel new again. Most of the accompaniments are staples in our house, where simple burritos or tacos are popular microwaved lunches.


It goes together fast and then cooks by itself for a good long time--while I do the baby bedtime routine or do other necessities outside of the kitchen. The proportions are loose, so you can add more chicken or more onions and still come up with something nice. I don't measure at all--just a couple glugs of olive oil into the pan, some oregano rubbed between palms, a tinge of cayenne...

And you can use still-frozen chicken breasts--no defrosting, no chicken contamination all over the kitchen.

The long cooking melts the onions and chicken together into a rich, shreddy mess that drips from the bottom of a burrito or the fold of taco or down the chin. It's still good warmed over the next day and probably freezes well, although I haven't tried it. No matter how much I make, it always seems to be gobbled up for lunch the next day.I've been making the recipe since I was 18 and got it from my mom. It's based on a recipe from somewhere, but the source has been since lost. I have a feeling it's not actually Dominican.

Dominican Chicken

5-6 chicken breasts, fresh or frozen
4 large onions, thinly sliced
4 peeled garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
1 t. dried oregano
a dash of cayenne pepper (or more if you like it spicy)
salt & pepper
1/4 c. olive oil
2 T. white wine vinegar

If you are using fresh or defrosted chicken, pat dry and cut into 2-inch pieces.

In a heavy casserole dish or pot, combine everything but oil and vinegar. Frozen chicken is easy--just toss it right in--but it will take longer to cook. Pour oil and vinegar over.

Cover and simmer gently until chicken is tender, stirring a couple times to prevent stickage. Fresh chicken takes about 45 minutes; frozen, at least twice that. Uncover in the last 15 minutes or so of cooking if it is too juicy.

Shred the meat with two forks and serve in burritos, tacos, or tostadas with any or all of the following: refried beans, cotija cheese (or whatever you have on hand), radishes, fresh onions, avocado, shredded lettuce, pumpkin seeds, cilantro, salsa...

On this night, we had tostadas, which I make myself (rubbing corn tortillas with olive oil and sprinkling with salt, popping into a 350-degree or so oven until brown). The packages of tostadas from Mexico are good too, but not as healthy or budget-friendly.

Vietnamese (?) Sticky Chicken

I used to mock the quick kitchen section in my Gourmet magazine. Calling for pre-chopped and frozen onions? A serious and disturbing sign of "things to come." The decline and fall of a culture that values food. A dangerous lack of appreciation for the mundane and beautiful--the way slivers of onion fall from the knife, the faint scent of allium on the fingers...

Sometimes that judgmental bitch I was really irks me. She actually had time to read, let alone cook. Now that I have about 15 minutes at 5:30 pm to prep dinner while the baby is in the high chair, pre-chopped and frozen onions sound pretty nice.

But I still like chopping, and I know there is something to be said for freshness when there's time. So I make this salad, loosely based on this recipe, in the spring when days get hot. It may be Vietnamese-ish, but I'm clearly not going for ethnic authenticity here.


Vietnamese Sticky Chicken Salad with Rice Noodles
(Serves 2 for dinner with lunch leftovers for parents and spice-loving baby)

Daikon/Carrot Pickle
Cut 2 medium carrots and an equal amount daikon radish into thin, long matchsticks using a Japanese Benriner or your good old-fashioned knife skills. Toss with a good amount of seasoned rice vinegar and put in fridge until dinnertime.

Chicken Marinade
3 garlic cloves, minced
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 teaspoons Sriracha

Mix in a bowl and add about 1 1/2 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick. Toss and marinate until you are ready to cook.

Salad
1 package rice noodles
lettuce or salad mix
basil, mint, and/or cilantro leaves
lime wedges
additional rice vinegar and Sriracha

Put the noodles in some cool water and let sit until dinnertime, or until pliable but not soft. Prep other salad stuff and set aside.

Then, at go-time:

1. Heat a splash of oil in a wok. Scoop up chicken and add to wok, leaving marinade in bowl. Stir fry until chicken starts to turn golden in spots. Add marinade and bring to a boil.

2. Drain noodles and add to wok. Stir fry until noodles are soft, adding a splash of water if the mixture gets dry and sticks.

3. Put a pile of salad mix in each bowl. Top with a portion of chicken and noodles--wilting is OK. Garnish with generous amount of daikon/carrot pickle and herbs. Squeeze lime juice over the top and add additional rice vinegar and Sriracha if you like.

Time-saving prep hints:

--I don't have a Benriner and do the cutting by hand--it doesn't take that long if you cut your veggies crosswise into about 2-inch chunks, cut each chunk longways into flat strips, and stack these up to cut longways again.
--I get my chicken breasts frozen from Trader Joe's, set 2-3 still-frozen breasts on the cutting board while I get the baby settled and prep the rest of the meal, and then slice while still frozen but a little soft. It makes it easy to get thin slices without the chicken sliding and smooshing under your knife. I throw the rigid slices in the marinade and let them sit and defrost until dinnertime.
--After dinner, prep more salads in Tupperware and throw in fridge for the next day's work lunch. It keeps fine overnight.

Caramelized crackers with chocolate

Like 5 million other bloggers, I had to try this recipe. I took I didn't really think it through--now the two of us have the equivalent of 2 sticks of butter and a cup of sugar just sitting around in crack-cracker form. Too much salty-sweet goodness.


I don't mess around with candy thermometers or recipes that require you do something totally unreasonable like, say, measure. This was easy. I put the crackers in the pan and measured butter and sugar into a pot while the baby snacked in her high chair and did the boiling/baking step after her bedtime while W. shook a couple cocktails.

I'm eating it now, at 9 am, with coffee, when sugar is most properly ingested.