Persimmon bread

I read a lot of food blogs, and in nearly every one, every winter, there is the rainy/snowy day, curl up on the couch under hand-knitted/quilted blankets with ridiculously cute dog/cat while drinking a mug of hot coffee/tea/hand-harvested stone-ground chocolate and eating assorted sweet breads/muffins/cookies/feats of sculptural bakery. And they claim to stay there all afternoon.

I'll admit it, I'm jealous. An entire afternoon! Time to layer mini cakes with home-canned jam. To knit scarfs that will be ready to sling around cold necks this winter, not next. To watch my children frolic in an adorably artistic pile on the vintage hardwood.

My afternoons are much more of the rush home from work and prevent the child from licking electrical cords variety. And if they weren't, I'd probably still skip the baking and head for the couch and the latest Michael Connelly mystery. (Which is where I've been the last week, for those who wondered.)

As for winter baking, I make endless versions of the following persimmon bread, break out the cream cheese, and call it good. Because this is one of those rare sweet baked things that can be totally over-stirred, it's easy to make with an enthusiastic toddler.

I pick persimmons from my parents' house at Christmastime, let them ripen into mush, whiz in the food processor, and freeze flat in Ziploc freezer bags. For this bread, pumpkin puree works great too, even better if that slightly astringent, squeaky persimmon flavor turns you off.

Persimmon Bread with Walnuts and Cranberries

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 t. baking soda
3/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/4 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. salt

2 eggs
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup persimmon (or pumpkin) puree
1/2 canola oil
1 t. vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup frozen cranberries (not defrosted)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl. Whisk wet ingredients together in another, add to dry, and whisk until blended. Stir in walnuts and cranberries. Pour dough into prepared pan.

Bake in the middle of oven about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until it feels firm when you poke at the top with your finger and a toothpick or wooden skewer jabbed through the middle comes out clean. Cool completely.

Instead of walnuts and cranberries, try chocolate chips, pumpkin seeds, coconut, whatever you've got on hand. It's all tasty. The recipe also doubles easily, so you can snack on one loaf all week and freeze the other for later.

Not-so-solitary spaghetti

Now that the baby has morphed into a toddler, my secret single spaghetti has become pasta with a side of potty talk. There's not really much you can do to put a positive hipster spin on that one, but I have taught the child to spin and slurp spaghetti, which delights me and horrifies my husband. (EDITED TO ADD: At lunch today, he taught her to drape spaghetti over her forearm and then nibble it off, so I've got nothing.)


When W. is at class late, the baby and I put together a quick pasta, as a team. She cuts the butter with a butter knife, then picks it up and gnaws on the stick when she thinks I'm not looking. I heat the water and chop garlic, herbs, and whatever veggie we have on hand. She tosses ingredients into the pan, we stir together.

And in the rush to prep quickly with a not-so-helpful helper, I've hit on a formula for awfully good pasta that uses what you've got:

Fast anything-goes pasta

Put a pot of water on to boil for pasta. Don't forget to salt it, liberally. Prep your ingredients while you wait for it to boil. When the water is ready, dump in a half pound of pasta and begin to make your sauce.

Put the following in a large saucepan and heat on medium low:

a couple cloves garlic, minced
a couple tablespoons parsley (or other herbs)
a small shake red chili flakes
a couple glugs olive oil (or a mixture of olive oil and butter to equal a couple tablespoons)

When the garlic is sizzling, add about a 1/4 cup of chicken broth. (I freeze my homemade stock in ice cube trays, and just throw in three cubes.) Turn up heat to medium, bring to a simmer, and add some sort of protein.

I like to do one of the following:
garbanzo beans
white beans
slivered almonds
slivered salami
pine nuts

A couple minutes before the pasta is done, toss a vegetable in the boiling water (broccoli florets; chicory, spinach, kale, or chard ribbons; small potato cubes; whatever). Or you can roast a vegetable in the oven by tossing with olive oil and salt and blasting it at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. Obviously, if you do this, you need to start the roasting process at the beginning of your prep.

Drain pasta when it's very very al dente, toss with sauce (and roasted veggies if you are going that route). Continue to simmer a minute or so, until pasta is done and sauce is largely absorbed. I like mine a little juicy.

Top with cheese. Finely grated parm or pecorino romano are good, as are aged cheddar, blue cheese, feta...

The photos show a broccoli/almond spaghetti and a roasted cauliflower/garbanzo fusilli, but this is one of those recipes that are born of that delicate balance between what sounds good and what is in the fridge. It is often delicious, but I've had my failures--frozen stir fry mix plus blue cheese anyone?

Cojones

Nope, we don't eat them.

A friend emailed me the following: "...I have to admit that I am very impressed at your courage to cook entire animals such as lambs and goats. Do you try to use everything, or do you draw the line at, for example: brains? Does it come with its pelt? Do you try to tan it? Does the dog get to chew the feet and ears? These are pressing issues about whole-animal preparation!"

And I realized, I have been misrepresenting the size of my balls. In a parallel universe in which I am totally hard core, when faced with brains, fur, and feet, I'm all "bring it ON!" In reality, our "whole" lamb goes from the farm straight to a local butcher, who packages it up neatly and without offal. Our freezer is less random bits and more $7/pound rack of lamb.

Poor dog.

Spontaneity? Overrated

One of the first scenes in the movie Flirting with Disaster has a character played by Tea Leoni writing off her former marriage as one of those sad relationships where you have to make an appointment to have sex. She's totally oblivious to the fact that she's interrupted the couple she's talking to on the night they were supposed to be getting it on. Planned in advance, of course. Hilarity ensues.

Five, ten years ago, I thought this scene was awfully funny, partly because I couldn't imagine living such as pre-scripted life. Now, it's still funny, but in a hits awfully close to home kinda way.

(If you have a kid like ours, you've got to carve. out. time. for your fun. That's all I'm saying.)

Anyway, I felt the same way about food. Menu planning was for the boring who walk among us, not for creative free spirits like me. I liked to flit through the grocery store, picking out anything that might work for this, or that. I had three menu options for every main ingredient, and spices for everything. It was fun.

But I've got less time and less money now, more of a commitment to eat carefully, intentionally, without throwing a crisper full of uneaten veggies into the compost regularly. I starting planning menus and coordinating them with our shopping list. Planning ahead makes those nights when we have 15 minutes to get food into the kid easier. It keeps us on track with healthy meals and local foods. We don't come home after a long day fantasizing about wheat berries with fall vegetables, but if it's on the menu, we'll make it and eat it and be glad we did. And it's surprising how much money you save when you aren't tempted to buy mascarpone cheese just in case you decide to make tiramisu at some point.

Here's how I do it:

When I read food magazines, I tab recipes I want to make with mini stickies. Food blogs, I clip and add to Google Notebook (or did, RIP).

On Friday evening (ideally), I make a list of the perishables that we must eat and random freezer/pantry items that are languishing and brainstorm some menu ideas based on those, writing additional necessary ingredients on a separate list. If I am in the mood, I check the magazine/blog/cookbook ideas I've tabbed and add some of those recipes to the mix. If not, whatever. I plan six meals, leaving one night open for laziness or a night out or just so I don't start to feel trapped.

On Saturday, we go to the farmer's market. I buy whatever I can on my list there and allow myself to buy some spontaneous chicory or cabbage or Chinese broccoli or whatever. Then we go to Trader Joe's, where we buy staples like yogurt and butter and wine and cheese.

Bulk food like oats and beans we buy from the health food store during the week.

Back at home, I do a final menu--easy meals for late work nights, long-cooking meats on weekends, pizza on Friday. I add notes about prep ahead like when to defrost meat or soak beans. I put snack, breakfast, dessert ideas in the margin.

It looks like this:


Sat: (defrost goat)
roast chicken with root veggies
arugula salad
bread

Sun: (defrost lamb kabobs)
braised goat shoulder steaks
spatzle
salad

Mon: lunch with friends (make lamb kabobs, chopped salad with radishes/carrots/parm)
pizza

Tues: (soak pinto beans)
pad Thai w/ tofu

Wed: (morning-beans in Crockpot) (cook wheat berries, chop fall veggies)
burritos with leftover chicken & fried potatoes, pintos
brown rice

Thurs:
wheat berry stew with fall veggies
feta cheese

Fri:
pizza

Other to-make items were pureed persimmons to freeze, chicken broth from the roast bones, and kale chips (just for fun).

How to make sugar syrup, redux

You know how you do something over and over and over again and then one day, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, you realize there's a much easier way to do it? And then you're all "Why the hell didn't I think of this before?"

Case in point? Sugar syrup. After all these years of lighting the stove, stirring and simmering, it hit me: the microwave.

Equal parts sugar and water in a Mason jar. Microwave until hot. Stir to dissolve sugar. Cool on counter. Slap a lid on the jar. Refrigerate. Make cocktails for weeks. Decide the cocktail hour is making you fat and vow to contain the cocktailing to weekends. Decide nothing goes with Jane Eyre, or with learning to knit, or with 8 PM like a little gin. Repeat.

Slow cooking Sunday: lamb neck bones

I skipped the requisite holiday blogging, I know. Travel to Internet-free zone, sleeping on floors, catching up with family, demanding in-laws, 9-hour drive, virulent stomach flu, blah, blah, blah... I have excuses in spades.

But it was lovely, when I wasn't being puked on: home-candied lemon peel, a stollen fail, thoughtful presents, a trip to the aquarium, baby's first cookie decorating, our traditional Christmas Eve mac and cheese (made proper-like, with béchamel, and then utterly desecrated by ketchup), running in the sand, croissants and Vietnamese coffee in Little Saigon.

And now we're back home, sorting and discarding and organizing and improving like crazy after two weeks of suitcase living. It feels good.

So does my weekly (if I feel like it) ritual of Sunday cooking: slow-cooked meat dinner, prep for meals throughout the week, a batch of bread dough to refrigerate and pull out in chunks for fresh bread all week, the transformation my farmers' market picks into deliciousness. Well, often something resembling good, at least.

But this Sunday's beans and lamb were delicious, even if the picture looks like sludge.

This may be the best use for lamb neck bones, if you hesitate to use the little suckers for broth and waste those tiny, tiny pockets of meat. If you don't happen to have a whole lamb in the freezer (did I mention we bought a lamb?), this is a great economical use for kabob or stew meat or other cuts because it uses meat as a condiment more than anything, a way to make your beans taste fantastic. This is based on a Turkish recipe from The Sultan's Kitchen, by Ozcan Ozan, but reminded me of the ribollita W. and I ate in Italy ages and ages ago.

This is an easy recipe, but don't forget to soak your beans the night before.

Lamb with white beans

2 c. great northern beans, soaked overnight & drained

2 T. butter

1-1/2 pounds lamb neck bones (or meat in 1-inch cubes)

1/2 onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled

1 T. tomato paste

1 can plum tomatoes, drained and chopped

1/2 t. dried red pepper flakes (add more if you don't have a toddler joining you for dinner)

2 c. water

salt & pepper

a small handful of dried mushrooms, optional

1 red bell pepper, chopped

Melt the butter, over med-high heat, in a Dutch oven or cast-iron casserole or other dish with a lid that can go in the oven. Brown lamb in the butter--don't worry about it foaming. Getting it brown on all sides will take 5-10 minutes. Add onion and garlic and cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the next chunk of ingredients--tomato paste through salt and pepper--plus the beans.

(Note: I tossed in a couple dried oyster mushrooms here because we get them from our CSA. They made dish even better, although I'll admit to pulling them out of my serving at dinner because the texture of mushrooms is one of my residual childhood hatreds. I'll bet some chopped kale added at this point would be good too.)

Cover, turn heat to maintain a simmer, and cook 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add bell peppers to the lamb and beans and stir. Cover and cook in oven 1 hour, or until tender. Check beans, adding a bit more water if they look dried out. The final dish will be like a thick stew, with some beans falling apart to make a creamy sauce.

You could gild the lily with some sausages and toasted bread crumbs, but we just had a green salad on the side and called it good.

An arctic blast and the soup that nobody ate

Remember the fresh herbs of last week? They've been hidden under a blanket of snow for the past five days. No more bahn mi until summer most likely.

We get just enough snow for it to be amazing each time, for us to gawk like tourists at snowflakes—snowflakes! Actually falling! From the sky!

But after slip sliding out of my driveway, blatantly disregarding the "chains required" signs, desperate to make it to my final on Monday, I can see how it could get old. Honestly, what's the point of snow if you don't get a snow day? Frozen pipes, a yard coated in ice, snowplowed slush run through with mud—I'm glad we only get this a couple times a year.

As it is, snowy days are the perfect excuse to make cookies, break our cocktails-on-weekends-only rule, and indulge in soup and sandwiches after work. If only my family liked the soup as much as I did...

My husband hates smooth soup. (He also hates parsley, spaghetti, anything with celery in it. I say that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. He says that because I hate shrimp and lobster, my opinion is completely invalid.)

I can see the soup thing, sort of. I don't like to eat pureed foods as a main dish. No smoothies for breakfast, puddings for snacks. But as the side to a crunchy grilled ham and cheese sandwich, I think a bit of roasted butternut squash soup and cilantro pesto is perfect.

Too bad I'm outnumbered. Tonight's tally was bowls of soup served, 3; empty bowls at the end of dinner, 1. Sigh.

W. says that if it was chunky, it would be great; I say that all that chopping would make the endeavor just not worth it. The whole point of the soup is that it's easy. He says that anything that produces smooth soup is pointless anyway. And I say something unprintable.

I'll let you judge for yourself.

Butternut squash soup

1 butternut, cut into large chunks (like into quarters)
1 apple, cored and quartered
1 onion, peeled and quartered
2 garlic cloves, peeled

Toss the veggies (EDITED TO ADD: and apple) with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast in a 375-degree oven until dark, dark, brown on the tips. Remove peel from squash. Coarsely process veggies in the food processor. (This can be done ahead and kept in the refrigerator. This is what I did so I had an easy, quick weeknight meal on tap.)

Put puree in saucepan with equal parts chicken broth and water, enough to thin the puree to your desired consistency. Bring to a boil and simmer gently about 10 minutes to blend flavors.

I like this soup with a dab of cilantro pesto made with cilantro (stems and all), walnuts, cotija cheese, a small splash of apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil—all blended in the food processor until smooth. It's also good with bacon, croutons, and fried sage or a bit of curry powder.