Latkes - Old & New

In honor of Chanukah, I made latkes last night. Let me start by saying that I love latkes. Simple, savory comfort food. Makes me feel like I am channeling my Jewish ancestors.

The traditional way to make these potato delights is to grate up some peeled potatoes and some onion. Add salt, pepper, flour and egg to bind up the mixture. Then you fry up the mixture like pancakes, preferably in a cast iron skillet. That's it. Easy peasy, as Kara would say.

A few notes on the basic recipe: Many people let their potatoes drain before mixing them up with the rest of the ingredients. I never have the time/patience for this, and I think my latkes are still pretty darn good. Also, many people - like my grandmother - would insist that latkes be made by grating your potatoes, and knuckles, on a box grater. I have done this many times. But I find that you can get an equally authentic product using a food processor with the shredding attachment. 

Because my mom and I have been participating in a fall CSA this year, I have an abundance of butternut squash. And if I am honest, I don't really like butternut squash that much. It's good as soup - for about a day. And I usually roast, puree and freeze up cubes of it to add to the instant mac and cheese my kids love and therefore assuage my guilt about feeding them instant mac and cheese. I was struggling to come up with uses for the all of the squash that are languishing in a box in our garage when I came across this recipe from Cooking Light that I had torn out and shoved in my recipe folder last year. Last night I gave it a try and found it to be excellent. I didn't follow the recipe to the letter, big surprise, but even as a blueprint, it was great. The curry makes these latkes a little spicy and very aromatic. I served them up with the traditional sour cream and added a side of mango chutney. They are hearty, too. I ate them as a main course last night and tonight.

Give latkes, of any variety, a try. They are incredibly flexible. Nearly impossible to screw up. Easily made vegan (no egg, use soy/rice milk instead) or gluten free (no flour, use corn starch or any gf flour). Happy Chanukah!

Freshest Fish

One of the best things about visiting Cape Cod last weekend was having access to amazing fresh fish. My amazing friend and host, Ellie, is also an amazing cook, so I was happy to let her prepare fish dinners both nights.

The first night we had Striper, aka Striped Bass, that had been pulled out of the ocean within 24 hours of purchase. Ellie placed the fillet in a tin foil packet, doused it with some white wine, salt, pepper, lemon and thyme and basil from the deck garden and let it steam on the grill. Oh my goodness! It was some of the best fish I have ever had.

Let me note, that my bar for Striper is pretty high as my father in law catches quite a bit of it in Avalon, NJ. But something about being on vacation, seeing the pier where the fish come in, having a dear friend do the cooking, made this fish dinner particularly wonderful.

Oh yeah, we also got lobster rolls for lunch. Unbelievably delicious.

Thank you, Ellie, for being a gracious and generous hostess last weekend. And thanks, too, for the over 20 years of enduring friendship. You are the best.

Super Salads

I have been all about the dinner salads recently. Even though I vastly prefer someone else to make a salad for me (it just tastes better that way), my desire for something cool, nutritious and satisfying overrides my distaste for making my own salad. And though I have a tendency to get in to a rut when it comes to salad making, I surprised myself recently with some new, and delicious, creations. Here is one that was especially good.

Salad "recipes" always seem silly to me, so I will just give the gist of what I did.

Mediterranean Salad
-Assemble whatever greens and additional veggies you like on your salad. I used some chopped cucumbers, red pepper, tomatoes.

-In a frying pan saute some mushrooms and sliced onions until they soften. Then add some zucchini slices to the pan and fry them up with olive oil, salt and pepper. (Our garden produced a huge zucchini, and I have been using it in pieces for over a week.)

-Take the zucchini out and sprinkle some grated Parmesan on top. Don't skimp. Don't wait until the rounds get cold or the Parm wont get melty and extra delicious. Cut up the zucchini to a size that suits you.

-Add the grilled veggies to your salad and dress with oil and balsamic vinegar. I also added some diced fresh mozzarella and some chicken tossed in pesto.

Yep, I put more grated Parmesan on top. I didn't say it was a "lite" salad, I just said it was yummy.

Best Ever Almond Butter

I have been a lame blogger of late. Dave took a new job that has him out of town three nights a week. Needless to say, we have been a little discombobulated around here. I have not exactly been a model of cooking excellence.

Until today.

Today I made Cinnamon Raisin Almond Butter. (That's right, this qualifies as cooking in my book.) I saw a post about this on the Tasty Kitchen blog and I decided to give in a try. It took about as long as it takes to play four Uno games with Kara. Not only did she have fun measuring the almonds, but watching nuts turn to butter turned out to be completely fascinating to both my kids.

I made the recipe as written by Eating Bird Food with two changes: She says that if you just process the ingredients long enough in your food processor, it will get smooth and creamy. Well, that might be the case, but I started to fear for the health of my Cuisinart, so I added about 3 tablespoons of peanut oil. Worked like a charm. Also, I added a couple squeezes of honey.

Can't wait to have this for breakfast tomorrow. Can't wait to share it with Dave when he comes home.

Leftovers - Good, Better, Best

Let's face it, not all leftovers are created equally. Some things, like cooked fish, will languish in the back of my refrigerator until the stench finally proves to me that I am not going to make some new dish with the remains of Tuesday's sauteed tilapia. On the other hand, extra chicken, steak, pancake batter, or noodles are sure to get "re-purposed" later in the week.

Rice, I believe, is the king/queen of leftovers. Easily made into rice and eggs or a crispy quesadilla or a easy rice salad. Rice salad is a summertime staple in our house as it is simple to make, makes use of herbs and veggies in our garden and doesn't require the stove. It isn't summer yet, but last week felt like a sneak peak at summer, so I thought I would use up some leftover rice and make this side for our dinner.

Here's what you do:
-Take a couple of cups of cooked rice, drizzle with olive oil and a splash of vinegar.
-Finely chop any or all of the following: green onion, red onion, bell peppers, hot peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, fresh herbs.
-You can saute your veggies for a few minutes if you want and add the rice mix at the end to warm it up. Toss with herbs right before dinner.
-Alternatively you can microwave the rice for a minute and mix the warm rice with the veggies to wilt them just a little.

Last week I had the ends of a container of TJ's grape tomatoes, so I took some advice from the Dinner a Love Story crew and roasted them in the oven for about 20 minutes before adding them to the rice. Oh my. So good.

Happy Birthday, Jamie!

Jamie LOVED hearing us sing "Happy Birthday" to him.

Last week Jamie turned two. A few things that have changed in the last year:

Jamie walks, but mostly runs, everywhere.

Jamie talks. In the last week or so he has even said some sentences. My favorite: "I want more mango!"

As promised to her when he was born, Jamie can now play with Kara. He even lets her dress him up in princess attire.

For Jamie's birthday we had some family for dinner and, of course, cake. Now I am not especially in favor of big birthday celebrations for little kids. (Unless as adults you are looking for an excuse to have a party.) But I am always in favor of cake. I love birthday cake. In fact, the cheaper, more industrially produced, the better in my book. Costo cakes? Fabulous. Safeway "bakery" concoctions? Yum! Duncan Hines? Perfection in a box.

Given that I am continuing the gluten free madness, I was pretty much convinced that I would be missing out on cake this year. And though I have been pretty impressed by my will power, I didn't think I could handle having a birthday cake in the house that I couldn't eat. Then I remembered that my friend Val had recently posted a recipe for her family favorite gluten free carrot cake.

After a phone consultation and a trip to the store, I made this cake (with a few adjustments) and can whole-heartedly proclaim that it is delicious. Not only yummy, it is pretty much indistinguishable for the gluten filled variety. I had my doubts when I tasted the batter and it was, well, peculiar. But after baking and slathering with cream cheese icing, it came out great.

"Ace of Cakes" I am not.

Val points out that one of the best things about this cake is that it is very flexible. You can use pretty much any kind of "flours" you have on hand. Same goes for sugars. Here is my version of Val's Best Carrot Cake Ever.

-Grate 3 cups of carrots. Set aside.
-Grease 2 cake pans or 8x11 pan
-In a mixing bowl sift together

• 2 1/2 cups of gluten free flour (I bought a Bob's Red Mill mix. Val has used brown rice, almond, quinoa.)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon

-In a separate bowl combine

• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup but would reduce to 1/2 next time.)

-Use a hand mixer to beat wet ingredients. When combined add carrots.
-Beat in dry ingredients. Mix on high for 1 minute.
-Fold in 1 cup raisins and 1/2 cup walnuts if desired.
-Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.
-After cakes have cooled, cover with cream cheese icing. (8oz cream cheese, 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 stick butter - beaten until smooth.)

 This cake, and especially the icing, was Jamie approved. Happy Birthday, baby!

Vermicelli Noodle Bowls

Kara had a friend over on Saturday night and since they were watching "Mega Mind" (very cute, by the way), Dave and I planned to have a civilized adult dinner together. I had originally wanted to make Bi Bim Bap since it is both fun and easy to eat while watching the Final Four, but I basically forgot to make the rice. Luckily, I had recently made a trip to the Asian supermarket and purchased rice vermicelli noodles.

I love love love Vietnamese food of all kinds, but I can never pass up the vermicelli bowls when we eat out. So in the gluten free spirit, we whipped up a home made version. They were delicious. The basic idea is to top a bowlful of noodles with chopped vegetables, meat if you want, cilantro and mint chopped. Then you douse the whole thing with nuoc cham sauce.  Here is a basic recipe. I also added a diced serano pepper and some chopped garlic to the sauce. It got a little toasty.


We topped our noodles with diced cucumbers, shredded carrot, daikon, mint, cilantro and some left over pulled pork I had in the freezer. Once you have all the veggies prepped, it is easy to recreate this meal on day two.

A Confession

I am a little embarrassed to admit this but...

I have been going wheat free for the past week.

That was a little anti-climactic, right? But I feel a little silly following what has become a trendy diet, especially since one of my best friends and my niece have celiac disease and therefore go gluten-free without the luxury of going back on the wheat when the experiment is over.

Despite my aversion to any diet that requires eliminating a food group, I decided to give this a shot - not for my waistline, for my knees. A friend in my book group eliminated wheat and sugar as part of a "cleanse" as she called it. She found that she felt so much better generally. Specifically, she found that her tennis elbow was greatly improved. It turns out that some people are particularly sensitive to the inflammatory effects of eating wheat products which can exacerbate joint pain. (No, there is no hard research on this, just lots of anecdotal evidence proliferating the webosphere.) Obviously, my friend's relief of her elbow pain could also be correlated to the more traditional treatments she had been using, but the post-gluten improvement was significant nonetheless.

Having suffered from knee pain with no obvious structural cause and no significant improvement after lots of physical therapy and cortisone injections, I decided to give it a try. I am so desperate that giving up wheat seems like a small trade off when I consider the possibility that I could both go for a run and walk down the stairs the next day.

 I actually find that I don't miss wheat all that much yet. The biggest difference is that eliminating wheat also eliminates a ton of the snack foods my kids regularly eat. No more nibbles on animal crackers, teddy grahams, Cherrios which is all to the good. Since the vast majority of processed food products contain wheat, a gluten free diet tends to lead you back to more wholesome foods.

Last night I cooked Trader Joe's brown rice fusilli pasta and mixed it with sauteed onion, red pepper, asparagus, baby spinach, chunks of fresh mozzarella and lots of olive oil. Did the noodles taste like "normal" pasta? No. But they were pretty much indistinguishable from wheat noodles. It was a delicious dinner that didn't leave me feeling deprived at all.

(Dave is along for the ride, though he has a pretty big loophole in the name of beer consumption.)

Risotto - Easy Peasy

A few months ago, I read a post on Dinner a Love Story about using leftover risotto to make cheesy rice patties. Luckily, Jenny included her go-to recipe for risotto. As I read it I thought, "I should make risotto." I even went so far as to buy Arborio rice (bulk at Whole Foods). No sooner had I put the rice away in my pantry than I forgot all about risotto.

Maybe because it was cold and damp yesterday...

Maybe because I felt like making something nice for Dave after he had a crappy day...

Maybe because I was entertaining fantasies of my children eating rice..
(What kind of person rejects rice for gods sake?)

...Last night I made risotto. It was amazing. So good that I wondered out loud, "Why don't I make risotto every night?" To which Dave replied, "I have no idea!"

I followed Jenny's recipe from DALS. But now that I have made it, I don't think I would consult a recipe again. It's that easy. And to dispel a risotto myth, you don't have to stir constantly. I managed to wash a few dishes and get the frozen green beans out etc. Although if you have a older kid around, you can put him/her in charge of stirring. Just think of what you could accomplish?

In case you are intimidated by risotto, let me break it down for you:

-Get out your 4 cup Pyrex pitcher. Add 3 cups stock and 1 cup milk. Or just use stock. Warm it up in the microwave for a few minutes. It should be hot but not boiling hot.
-Melt a pat of butter and some olive oil in a heavy sauce pan.
-Add finely chopped onion, garlic and/or shallots to season the fat in the pan. (I added some chopped mushrooms too.
-Add 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice and stir until the kernels glisten.
-Add a glug or two of white wine if you have it. Stir for a minute.
-Start adding stock/milk about 1/2 cup at a time. Stir until the liquid is absorbed. Repeat. You may need to add more than 4 cups of liquid. If so, you can put in some water or more stock.
-Once your rice starts to look creamy start tasting until it is as soft as you want it.
-Add salt, pepper and a lot of Parmesan cheese.

Unless you are like my wacko kids, you will love this. One of the best things I have cooked in a long time. I can't wait to try the day two risotto cakes. Yum.

Two more takes on risotto:
Mark Bittman's Laid Back Risotto
Three Many Cooks Spring Risotto

Comfort Dinner

One of the first things I ever made from the Pioneer Woman cookbook was her "Comfort Meatballs." On her site they are called BBQ Meatballs which is an equally apt name. The story goes that a friend of the family brought Ree these delicious meatballs after she had just come home with one of her babies. This story inspired me to make this dish for several of my friends to nourish their postpartum cravings. Our friends Filip and Juliane welcomed their third child this month, and in his honor I whipped up this recipe again. And if you are going to make one batch of balls, you might as well double the recipe. (Insert ball joke of your choice here.)

Pioneer Woman's recipe can be found here. One of the great things about this recipe is that it can easily be gluten free because she uses oats instead of breadcrumbs. If you are cooking for a GF family, just omit the step of dredging the meatballs in flour before frying them. You can skip it even if you aren't eating GF, they come out just fine. Also, these meatballs freeze really well. If I am giving a batch away, I just brown the meatballs, place in a tin foil tray and cover with sauce - no need to bake. Just tell the lucky recipient to thaw and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Finally, these meatballs are perfect with mashed potatoes. I have also had them over rice, quinoa and with cheese in a panini.

More Oatmeal Ideas

In a serious bout of procrastination, I was perusing Mark Bittman's site and saw that he was recently on the Today Show demonstrating some new ways to "jazz up" oatmeal.

Aside from the entertainment value in watching Lauer pretend that he doesn't hate oatmeal and Bittman pretend he doesn't hate Lauer, there are some cool cooking ideas here. Steel cut oats in coconut milk? Oatmeal patties in soy sauce? Sounds promising.

Check out the video.

Vietnamese Summer Rolls - Appetizer Extraordinaire

This weekend, our friend Josh came over for diner and brought his new girlfriend. We have had Josh as a guest maybe a thousand times, including vacations together, Christmas parties, full family dinners. Not only is Josh one of our best friends, but he is the easiest guest ever. He loves our kids and our dog. He gets along with our extended families. And most importantly, he will eat anything your serve up. He is the antithesis of the picky eater. (Though he swears that there was a period in his childhood when he subsisted almost entirely on hot dogs.)

This is all by way of saying that while I love to cook new things when Josh comes over, I don't fret if we are just serving up pizza or sandwiches or hot dogs for that matter. But the whole new girlfriend thing inspired me to go the extra mile. Here was the menu:

Cheesy crab in pastry cups courtesy of Mrs. D, Josh's mom
Vietnamese summer rolls, handmade right in my kitchen
Shredded Asian flavored beef
Stir-fried vegetables over udon noodles
Cheesecake brownies for dessert

With the exception of the stir fried veggies and noodles, which were pretty basic, every other dish was totally blog-worthy. (I will post more later this week, promise.) But the best part, in my humble opinion, was the summer rolls. I have always wanted to make these, and now that I have found and learned to sort of navigate an Asian grocery I was ready to give it a try.

Check out my knife skills. Perhaps Top Chef Moms Edition?

I consulted a variety of recipes on the web and basically used this one from The New York Times. The prep time on this recipe is not small because you have to carefully cut the vegetables to make them uniform size. That being said, it is well worth it. These were delicious, and I think that Megan, Josh's new girl, was suitably impressed. (Why I felt the need to impress her is not entirely clear to me - a subject for another blog entry...?)

Here is what I put in our summer rolls. There are, of course, tons of ways to vary this recipe to fit your needs and tastes.  Photos by Dave.

Here is all of the veggies chopped and ready to go.

• cucumber - seeded and cut into long thin strips
• jicama - halved, peeled and cut into long thin strips
• 2 carrots julienned
• mung bean sprouts
• rice sticks and/or rice vermicelli - cooked and rinsed
• cilantro, mint, Thai basil - roughly chopped
• 1 lb medium shrimp - cooked, tail off. (You could also use chicken, pork, tofu or just go all veggie.)
• 1 Korean hot pepper finely chopped (I only added this to a couple of rolls to make them spicy.)
• rice paper 

Dave showing off his camera skills that are far superior to mine. Jealous much?

Here is what you do:
-Get out a large plate and put a damp paper towel on it
-Soak a rice paper in warm water for about 10 seconds and place it on your work surface
-Start with two shrimp and then add a little of everything else.
-Roll it up like a little burrito - fold the bottom up first, then fold in both sides, then roll the rest of the way up.
-Place on plate and refrigerate covered until ready to serve. I read several recipes that noted not to let the rolls touch on the plate. Also, several suggested to only prepare them 2 hours or less before serving, but I made them about 4 hours before go time and they were just fine.

I don't typically do the step-by-step photo thing. About a hundred other bloggers have cornered that market, but this once I am making an exception.

Ready to go. Yes, I have an apron with my name on it. Cooler than cool, right?

After you put in all of the ingredients, roll the bottom up first.

Then fold in each side.

Roll it up the rest of the way.

I believe I actually said, "Ta da!"

I served them with a peanut dipping sauce and a tangy fish/rice vinegar sauce. You can buy a good peanut sauce at Trader Joe's. If you want to make it, just combine a 1/4 cup of peanut butter with a little soy, some hoisin, some hot sauce like sriracha and some sugar/honey to sweeten. Just play with it until it tastes right to you. For the tangy sauce I combined a few tablespoons of rice vinegar, white sugar, sriracha, fish sauce and a little mirin until it tasted good.

These would be fun to do with kids, too. I made an all veggie one for Kara and she actually liked it. One warning, I had way more ingredients than I actually needed for 10 rolls. If you are going to make these, I recommend either making a lot and/or planning your weekday meals around an Asian theme to use up the delicious fresh herbs and vegetables in the fridge.

Rice and Eggs - The Classic Brinner

When I was growing up, one of my mother's classic breakfast, and sometimes dinner, dishes was rice and eggs. Using the left over rice from Chinese take-out, my mom could whip up a delicious meal. (I realize as I am writing this that I don't know what the origin of this meal was - Mom, if you are reading, fill us in.)

Now that I am a mom,  I come back to this "recipe" time and again. Not only does it taste great, it reminds me of my mom and how much I loved when she made this for me as a little girl. Beyond nostalgic reasons to love rice and eggs, I also love that it is easy, healthy and my kids will eat it. In fact, when Jamie was about a year old, he would eat rice and eggs, with some vegetable thrown in, just about every day for lunch.

Last night Dave was out for dinner, so of course Kara requested brinner for dinner. I was happy to oblige. The kids had waffles and eggs and I had a delicious plate of rice and eggs. In this iteration of the meal, I added some red peppers, chopped spinach and green onions. And though left-over Chinese restaurant rice works best, I had to settle for the brown rice hiding in the back of our refrigerator.

Here is the "recipe" - a term I apply loosely. I generally use 2 eggs per adult and 1 per child. You do the math.

• Beat eggs with a little milk/water. Set aside.
• If you are going to add veggies or meat, get them ready. I recommend finely chopping any additions.
• Get the rice out. If it is really dry, like the kind in a take-out container, microwave it for a minute to soften it up.
• In a frying pan melt enough butter to thoroughly coat the pan. Don't be shy. If using veggies, saute for a few minutes. Add the rice. I use about 1/4 cup per egg. Saute for a few minutes until rice is warmed through.
• Add eggs and scramble. 
• You can throw in some cheese at the end if you are in to that kind of thing. 
• Serve alone or with anything that you might put with eggs: ketchup, salsa, hot sauce, bbq sauce. Personally, I love it with mango chutney. But I am a freak.

Crispy Quesadillas

As I have written about previously, I love quesadillas. They are the easy and nutritious. They are universally loved in my house. And they are an opportunity to use up the dribs and drabs of leftovers in the fridge.

For my lunch today I tried a new spin on the traditional quesadillas that we make here, and the results were delicious. Instead of using a wheat tortilla (from Trader Joe's) and folding it in half, I used two small corn tortillas (also from TJ's). Just a quick note: read the ingredients before you buy tortillas - my friend Val had the disturbing experience of realizing that the corn tortillas she bought contained a slew of chemical ingredients. What the hell? Anyway...back to my lunch. Here's how I built my super crispy quesadilla:

Tortilla
Slice of colby cheese since that was what was in the fridge
A couple of tablespoons of black beans because that was what was left in the Tupperware
A scoop of brown rice left from our bi bim bop feast on Saturday night
A few spinach leaves that were too wilty to eat in salad at this point
A dash of onion, garlic and chipotle powders
Another slice of cheese
Tortilla

I cooked it up in my cast iron skillet and put some salsa and sour cream on the side. I happened to go to Whole Foods to buy oats  for our overnight oatmeal today and picked up a little container of salsa fresca - so good. (BTW: Bulk oats are $.99 a pound which is a great deal.) Corn tortillas get nice and crispy on the skillet, and they are the perfect size for one serving. Also, the rice added a little substance to compensate for the small amount of beans that I had on hand.

I have just decided that this is what we are having for dinner. I suspect that Dave will add pickled jalepenos to his. Kara might want some chopped red pepper with the beans and cheese. I may go crazy and spread the last of my homemade ricotta on mine. Can't wait.

Oatmeal Revelation

Last week Mark Bittman wrote his New York Times opinion piece about the abomination that is McDonald's "oatmeal." Like most things that come from McDonald's, it is more than likely that the oatmeal tastes good. I may be a local-eating, Michael Pollan-loving mom, but I also think that a Quarter Pounder with cheese is delicious. Despite the yumminess of its foods, there is really no arguing that McDonald's produces some of the least healthy food products on the planet; not only is that burger really bad for you in terms of fat, calories and sodium, you can be sure that meat was grown in a manner that was harmful to the environment and workers. But I digress...Bittman's piece points out just how strange McDonald's oatmeal is - it contains over 20 ingredients, for example.

Since Bittman didn't need to sell me on avoiding McDonald's food, I was more interested in the link to a blog called The Simple Dollar that provided an analysis of how much money one could save by making your own packets of instant oatmeal. Very cool.

And all of this discussion about oatmeal led me to consider some ways to make oatmeal for breakfast more do-able in our house. See, everyone in my family loves oatmeal. But I don't really like to purchase the instant packets - I suspected they were a rip-off, which turns out to be true, and I knew that they were far less healthy than what I could make on the stove. But I live with a toddler and a five year old who are not always the picture of patience in the morning, and I am not typically the picture of organization as we are getting ready to for our busy day. Given these variables, how could we have homemade oatmeal without the fuss?

Consulting the Google, I came up with a solution: soak the oats overnight. I am sure this is completely obvious to most people, but it was news to me. Friday night I gave it a try. (Have I mentioned that we have a thrilling social life?) In a glass bowl I put about a cup of rolled oats, a few shakes of salt and cinnamon, and poured about 2 cups of milk. I didn't really measure the milk; I just poured in enough to cover the oats. I covered the dish and put it in the fridge. In the morning, it was a creamy bowl of breakfast happiness. I added raisins and warmed it up on the stove. Since everyone liked it so much, I made a larger batch on Sunday night. This time I used half milk and half water to cover the oats. And on this rainy Monday morning, everyone got their own bowl to microwave for about a minute. (Why I used the stove the first time is a mystery to me.) Delicious!

My internet "research" indicates that you can easily add other grains like quinoa or millet to the mix. Also a good application for added flax meal or wheat germ if you are looking to up the fiber. Any dried, fresh or frozen fruit would be a nice addition. Finally, you can do the same type of overnight preparation with steel cut oats. Here is Bittman's version of this variation.

One last oatmeal tip: If you like oatmeal, definitely try to buy it in bulk. Even at Whole Foods, not known for low prices, the bulk grains are way cheaper than buying a branded product.

Miso Butter

I know I have written about Josh on many occasions, but I am not sure if I have mentioned that Josh's mom is a seriously amazing cook. Over the years, I have gathered delicious recipes for scones, cream cheese brownies, jalapeno poppers, buffalo chicken dip to name just a few. But one of the coolest things I learned from Mrs. D is how to make miso butter. Brace yourself for this complex recipe...

• Soften 1 stick of unsalted butter, mix it with 2 tbsp white miso paste. Add chopped scallions or shallots to taste.

The only challenging part of making miso butter is, potentially, finding miso paste. I ventured to a local Asian grocery store, stood in front of the miso section for about 5 minutes while Jamie yelled, "MISO!" and then picked the palest miso paste I could find.

Once you have made miso butter, I defy you to find something that it does not improve - it's sort of like caramelized onions in this regard. Mrs. D originally served it on sweet potatoes. I have found it to be delicious on asparagus, broccoli, chicken, white potatoes, fish, bread, a spoon. I have a miso butter problem.

Thanks to Josh and his mom for introducing us to this amazing condiment!

Dinner for Company - Carnita Beef

On Saturday we had a our good friends John, Jen and their 7 month old son Justin over for dinner. "Uncle" Josh, Kara's favorite dinner guest, joined us too. I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to use one of the fabulous new cookbooks my mother in law gave me for Christmas.

Pam Anderson, not to be confused with the buxom former wife of rocker Tommy Lee, is a foodie, cookbook author, blogger and all around cool lady from what I can gather. Her food blog Three Many Cooks is written by Pam and her two sisters and offers some great recipes. Her cookbooks also get rave reviews. I have How to Cook without a Book and Perfect One-Dish Dinners.

For our weekend dinner, I was looking for something easy and fun that would use up some of the meat that is currently taking up all of my freezer space. "Carnita-Style Beef" from One-Dish Dinners was, in fact, perfect. Basically, you braise chuck roasts in a chile sauce, shred the meat and serve it sort of like fajitas.

Here is the basic recipe for the beef. This makes a TON of food. You could easily cut this recipe in half and it would serve 6-8 hungry adults. If you go that route, you can make the whole thing in a dutch oven. I also think this recipe could be adapted to a slow cooker. I will give that a try next time.

•  Preheat oven to 450.
• In a large bowl, cover 2 beef chuck roasts (4-6 lbs total weight) with olive oil, salt, pepper and cumin.
• In a small bowl combine 2 small cans chopped green chile peppers, 1/4 cup chili powder and 2 tsp cumin. (I might try adding a little molasses or brown sugar to sweeten it up next time.)
• Chop up 8-10 cloves of garlic.
• Heat a large roasting pan on high and cover the bottom with oil. Sear the meat on so it gets nice and crusty. Set aside.
• Add garlic to pan for a minute or so. Then add chile mixture and stir until fragrant - like another minute. Now dump in a quart of chicken stock and stir until bubbling.
• Return meat to pan and cover with several layers of foil so that the steam is staying locked in.
• Cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. You want the meat to be shredable. 
• Shred the meat and set aside until ready to serve. This is easy to freeze in bags and would be great for enchiladas, quesadillas, tacos, bi bim bap. Yum!

I fried up a couple of bell peppers and onions cut into long strips to serve with the beef as well. We just put the meat, the veggies, a bowl of rice and beans,  warm tortillas, sour cream, salsa and guacamole on the table and let everyone make their own thing. It was simple and fun.

Jen, who manages to be a doctor, a mommy and an amazing cook, brought the most delicious carrot cake cupcakes. Here is the recipe from Food & Wine Magazine. Seriously, the best cupcakes ever. Jamie de-frosted his and then devoured the actual cake in under a minute. It was a show!

Never Arrive Empty-Handed

On Saturday night we had an impromptu gathering at our house to watch some football, drink some beers and let our kids run wild for a few hours. My friend Becky calls this the "dinner play date." Kids play, grown ups eat, talk, or in this case watch football, in peace.

Dave invited our friend Tom and his wife Layla to join us. They have six kids. Seriously. I think that this accounts for their refreshingly relaxed take on just about everything. Layla couldn't come, but Tom said he would stop by. When he walked in with a bag from the grocery store, I just assumed it was the most convenient method for carrying beer. I was way off base. Since Tom as all out of beer, he stopped at the store to bring a tomato pie for snacking. When there was no tomato pie left, he picked up a rotisserie chicken and loaf of Tuscan bread instead. Sure. Why not? I have to say I really admired Tom's commitment to not arriving empty-handed, even if we did tease him for being such a weirdo.

I tried to get him to take the chicken home to his brood, but he was having none of it. So on Sunday, I stripped down that bird and made a big batch of curried chicken salad. If you have some leftover chicken around, or rotisserie birds go on sale, give this "recipe" a try. Much better than the run of the mill chicken salad.

-In a medium sized mixing bowl combine:

• The meat from a whole rotisserie chicken. (The bird I used from the supermarket produced about 3 cups of chicken meat.)
• 2 stalks of celery, 3 green onions chopped. If you don't have green onions on hand, use 2 tbsp or so of finely chopped yellow onion.
• One carrot "julienned." You could use a peeler, a mandoline or a grater. The idea is to get nice small pieces of carrot.
• About a half a cup of canned Mandarin oranges or diced pineapple
• 1/4 cup mango chutney. If you don't have chutney, apricot jam will work too.
• 1/2 to 1 cup of mayo - depending on your tastes. You could also use plain yogurt or a combination of yogurt and mayonnaise.
• 2-4 tsp of curry powder - again depending on your tastes. You could make this salad spicy by adding more curry, some cumin, chili powder, cayenne etc.
• Other options: 1/4 cup raisins, cut up grapes, chopped apple, walnuts, almond slivers

Chili Dinner

Saturday night we hosted a bunch of friends for a casual holiday get together. Dave made his signature chili and we served it up with rice, corn bread, beer bread, mac and cheese (ostensibly for the kids), and a lot of delicious baked goods. It's critical to accompany any holiday meal with three or more carbs, don't you think?

Dave is busy working on some holiday shopping duties, so I will try my best to impart his chili recipe. This makes a big pot of chili - don't be intimidated by the huge quantity, it gets better as it ages and it freezes really well.

Dave's Chili
-Chop 3 medium onions, 3 bell peppers, 4-5 cloves of garlic. Add to a large pot with olive oil. As the vegetable sweat, finely chop some variety of hot pepper and add it to the mix. Our brother in law, Frank, gave Dave 2 habanero peppers from his plant, so he used these this time. Be careful with the peppers - you can always add more, but it is pretty hard to make chili less spicy once you have it flaming hot. You can regulate the spice of the pepper by removing some of the seeds and pith.
-Add canned/frozen diced tomatoes. This time Dave used 4 quart bags from our freezer that had about 2 1/2 cups in each bag. 
-Brown 2 lbs of meat, ground turkey or beef, in a separate pan and pour off the fat when it is cooked through. Add it to the pot.
-Add beans, about 3 cans or 6 cups frozen bagged beans like we had this time. Dave uses black beans. We have also used white beans, red beans and various combinations.
-Add a bag of frozen corn.
-Add a bottle of beer. Dave uses something with robust flavor like a good amber ale or maybe a porter.
-Cook it all up and if it seems too thin, add some tomato sauce. Add your spices - chili powder, cumin, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.
-Dave usually lets it cook on the low heat for about an hour. He also recommends preparing this the day before you want to serve it as the flavors "mature" over time.

We usually have chili over rice and/or cornbread.  Valerie brought homemade tortilla chips that were so delicious and made an excellent accompaniment as well. (I hope she blogs about those chips soon...hint hint.) Tonight, I am using the rest of the chips and serving chili nachos for dinner.

Thanks to everyone who came over to celebrate the holidays with our family. We had a blast!

Food for Rainy Days: Spicy White Beans & Greens

Another rainy day yesterday inspired me to make one of my recently discovered meals. Last year my mom, uncharacteristically, saw Emeril on  Good Morning America where he made "Creamy White Beans with Sausage." Shortly after, my mom hosted our gang for a Sunday dinner where she served up this healthy and hearty comfort food. Since then, I have interpreted this recipe several times and each time I am more convinced that it is a true keeper. You know, one of those recipes to put in your recipe box, or at the very least least bookmark on your computer.

Some of the things I love about this dish:
-It's cheap and healthy. You don't get much better than beans when it comes to nutritional bang for your buck.
-It is easy to prepare - one pot, a knife and cutting board are all that's required and the whole thing can be done in about 30 min or less including cooking time. Rachel Ray has nothing on moms of America, right?
-It is easily adapted to whatever ingredients you have on hand.
-It can accommodate a number of food needs - it is naturally gluten free, but can also be vegetarian.

Following Emeril's recipe will yield great results. Here is what I did in the most recent iteration:

• Finely chop up 3 cloves of garlic, 1 medium onion, 1 or 2 bell peppers depending on their size. I used a medium red bell and one small green bell pepper.
• Heat a large stock pot or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add 3 or so tablespoons of olive oil. You want to cover the bottom of the pot.
• Add the veggies to the pot and stir while they sweat. While the vegetables are cooking up, cut up 12 oz which is about 3-4 links of sausage into 1/4-1/2 inch rounds. Use whatever kind of sausage you like. I used Trader Joe's chicken andouille sausage. You could also use chorizo, kielbasa or hot/sweet Italian sausage. Obviously, a spicy sausage will make for a spicier pot of beans. But if you don't have or don't like spicy sausage, you could spice this up in other ways: add some hot pepper flakes, chopped hot peppers of your choosing, hot sauce. You get the idea.
• Add the sausage to the pot and cook for about 5 minutes.
• Add 1 can or about 2 cups of diced tomatoes and cook for a few minutes more. 
• Add 3 cans or about 6 cups of white beans. Cook for a few minutes and then add 3 cups or about 3 big handfuls of spinach and/or arugula.
• Season with salt, pepper, sage, thyme, parsley and cook for about 10 minutes more until beans are soft and flavorful. 

Serve it up with bread and salad for dinner. Delicious!