Feast For One

Eighty-three rules for eating well? Eighty-THREE??

2012-01-08T11:39:00.000-09:00

I remember when I got to the end of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma thinking, "Well, what the hell CAN I eat, then?" Although the mental image of that potato farmer covered in fertilizer did stick, to the point that I started growing my own potatoes, I was pretty much done with Pollan lecturing me on how everything I buy in a supermarket contributes to the destruction of Planet Earth, and will probably give me cancer besides. I can handle bad news, but not with every mouthful.

So I skipped Food Rules when it first came out in 2009. Then came this edition two years later, which is illustrated by Maira Kalman, whose work I know from her marvelous illustrated blogs in the New York Times. I, too, am in love with A. Lincoln. How could I not at least look at a book she illustrated?

I didn't just look, I bought, and I'm glad I did, although, I must say, Pollan almost lost me on page 20:

Food Rules distills this body of wisdom into eighty-three simple rules for eating healthily and happily.

Eighty-three rules? Eighty-THREE? Are you KIDDING me? I have to memorize eighty-three rules to eat well? What, I'm supposed to take an 83-item checklist with me every time I go to the store? I don't care how simple the rules are, there is no way I'm going to be able to remember, let alone follow eighty-three of them.

Maira's illustration of mom-and-daughter cooks standing on a porch kept the book in my hand instead of flying across the room into a corner, there to lay until it was ready to put in the library donation box in the garage. I turned the page. Pollan writes

I've collected these adages about eating from a wide variety of sources.

which is a vast understatement. Evidently many people took the first edition of Food Rules seriously to heart. The adages contained therein had propagated themselves spontaneously into the wild. Nutritionists, dieticians, mothers, grandmothers wrote in with more sayings promoting eating well. The result is an updated version with the aforesaid, and brilliant, illustrations of Maira Kalman, which make the whole endeavor much more, uh, palatable, at least to me.

Still. Eighty-three rules. Come on. Although he does redeem himself a little by saying

There is no need to learn or memorize them all...Adopt whichever ones stick and work best for you.

Okay.

The book is divided into three chapters, with subheadings from his now-famous saying. I extract the ones that mean most to me below.

I. Eat Food

2. Don't Eat Anything Your Great Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food
I think my great-great grandmother was the one who traveled the Oregon Trail. Pretty sure she wouldn't know a bag of Cheetos if she saw one.
7. Avoid Food Products Containing Ingredients That a Third-Grader Cannot Pronounce
I went immediately to the cupboard and pulled out my box of Triscuits, my favorite cracker. "WHOLE GRAIN SOFT WHITE WINTER WHEAT, SOYBEAN OIL, SALT." No more than two syllables per word. Whew.
11. Eat Only Foods That Will Eventually Rot
The vegetable drawer in my refrigerator is filled with plants that can rot. Too many do. Not only should you buy foods that will eventually rot, you should also eat them. Preferably before that happens.
22. It's Not Food if It Arrived Through the Window of Your Car
I haven't been to a McDonald's since my niece Esther graduated from high school. I'm covered here.

II. Mostly Plants

30. Eat Animals That Have Themselves Eaten Well
My freezer is filled with moose and deer liver, salmon, halibut and shrimp, all of it hunted or fished in Alaska. Covered.
37. Sweeten and Salt Your Food Yourself
Have you ever eaten a Hot Pocket? I tried one once and it was so salty I literally couldn't swallow it. Sweetened yogurt makes me gag, you might as well be eating cotton candy. Processed foods are so heavily saturated with salt and sugar that I find them inedible. If you don't notice this, it's because you've dulled your taste buds eating them. I'm a hundred percent with Pollan on this.
40. Make Water Your Beverage of Choice
Always has been. Covered.

III. Not Too Much

53. Pay More, Eat Less
Support your local farmer's market. My only problem here is, well, winter.
54. ...Eat Less
Sigh.
57. If You're Not Hungry Enough to Eat an Apple, Then You're Probably Not Hungry
One of the seminal memories from my childhood is of my mother eating an apple a day. She had dentures, so she'd quarter and core it, but not peel it, and eat it before she went to work in the morning. Mind you, these were horrible apples, one of only two or three fruits that made it all the way to the grocery store in Seldovia, arriving mealy and dry and tasteless. But she ate one every day. I try to.
82. Cook
I didn't start cooking until I was in my thirties. It's not only good for your body and for the environment, it's good for your soul, a creative endeavor that pays off the very same day. Or not. I regard anything that comes out well from my oven as a minor miracle. I do better on top of the stove.
83. Break the Rules Once in a While
Salvation.

Chef David Chang's Top Ramen Hangover Cure

2011-12-22T15:07:00.003-09:00

Pumpkin Chipotle Soup

2011-12-07T12:44:00.001-09:00

I had some pumpkin chipotle soup in Portland last month that was to die for. Well, I've got a can of pumpkin and a can of chipotle chiles, I'm good to go.

But wait. I had half a cup of broth left over from yesterday's Best Black Bean Soup Ever, to which I forgot to add chili powder and had to use pinto beans because I was out of black beans.

So I topped off the leftover broth with chicken broth until it made a cup and put it back in the saucepan. I added a cup of canned pumpkin and whisked it together. I brought it to a boil and reduced it to a simmer for five minutes.

I poured it into a bowl and swirled in a couple of tablespoons full of plain yogurt. I garnished it with cilantro and picked up a spoon.

Dead easy and delish.

Cook's tip:
*Pumpkin is not just another pretty taste, it's loaded with beta carotene which is great for your skin.

Cook's plea:
*Anybody out there got a good recipe for pumpkin muffins?

Dana's Kedgeree

2011-11-21T17:33:00.001-09:00

I'm staying with friends, and my host Rob smoked a halibut filet for another, non-meat-eater friend, Jacqueline Winspear, who came to dinner. We had a little less than a pound of the halibut left, and were wondering what to do with it. Jackie, British, said, "It'd be good in kedgeree."

Now, I have eaten kedgeree myself, in Ireland, and I thought this was a fine idea. So...

Melt four tablespoons of butter in a little olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat.

When the butter stops foaming, about a minute, add 1/4 teaspoon of ground cayenne and a tablespoon of curry powder.

Stir it around for about a minute, and add about a cup of rice. I used what was left of a box of Chinese takeout rice, heated for 30 seconds in the microwave.

After about a minute, during which you will suddenly realize that every Filipino you know will take one look and say "That's just fried rice!" add the flaked, smoked halibut, stir it in, and cook for about a minute.

Sieve four hard-boiled eggs through a cheese grater (the big hole, Rob's tip). Mix half the sieved eggs into what is now kedgeree.

Put the kedgeree on a plate and garnish with the rest of the sieved eggs and some chopped parsley.

Serve immediately. It's really good, and now I'm wondering if it would work with smoked salmon.

Cook's tips:
*The recipe didn't call for it, but it needed a little salt. Not much, just a shake.
*Here's the wiki on kedgeree.

Cook's homage:
*The kedgeree recipe above was based on the one on page 42 in the TimeLife Recipes: The Cooking of the British Isles cook book, 1969.

Snow Day Mac and Cheese

2011-11-03T18:16:00.004-08:00

On a day like this

comfort food is what you want for lunch.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Cook half a pound of macaroni. Drain and set aside.

Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Stir in 1/4 to 1/3 cup of bread crumbs. Stir until brown. Remove from heat and set aside.

Mince half an onion. Melt two tablespoons butter in a little olive oil in a saucepan, and add onions. Saute for about two minutes.

Add a couple of cloves of garlic, squished. Stir just until mixed, and then immediately add two not quite heaping tablespoons of flour. Stir into a paste.

Slowly add one to 1 1/2 cups warmed milk (thirty seconds in the microwave). Bring to a boil, stirring. As soon as it boils it will begin to thicken. When it does, add about half a cup of grated cheddar cheese. Stir until well mixed. Remove from heat.

Oil a baking dish. Put in the macaroni. Pour the cheese sauce over the macaroni.
Top first with some grated parmesan cheese.
Top second with the bread crumbs, evenly spread.
Top third with a little more parmesan, just a dusting.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve.

Cook's tips:

*Sharp cheddar cheese is always best for this recipe, but all I had in the fridge was Dubliner's, which is a little sweet by comparison. So I garnished with parmesan to make up for it.

*Garlic burns easily. All you really want to do here is perfume the oil and butter and onions. Thirty seconds max before you add the flour.

Cook speculating:

*Wondering if I couldn't work a dollop of white wine into this next time.

Veg Au Gratin

2011-09-19T12:48:00.003-08:00

Two things that mark the end of summer:
Spiders moving into the house,
and my last Saturday at the Homer Farmer's Market.
I'll miss the dahlia guy.

This is the time of year when the giant cauliflowers come out, and I'm always looking for different ways to cook them. Here's one.

Layer florets of cauliflower and broccoli in a Pyrex baking dish.

In a saucepan, melt two tablespoons of butter in a little olive oil. Add some sliced leeks, and saute for about three minutes.

Add two tablespoons of flour, and mix into a paste. No lumps!

Add a cup and a quarter of milk to the paste and stir until it thickens.

Pour the sauce over the vegetables. Top with grated Parmesan and bake in a 400F oven for 25 minutes, or until browned.

Serve immediately.

Cook's tip:
*Every recipe for au gratin anything that I've ever seen calls for seasoning the vegetables before pouring the sauce over them. There is plenty of salt in the cheese, you don't need more.
*Experiment with different vegetables, but be mindful that different vegetables call for different cooking times. Potatoes will take longer. Onions it is always best to saute first.
*Experiment with different cheeses, or multiple cheeses.
*Maybe add some cooked pasta?

Cook's recommendation:
*Great main dish for that hard-to-serve vegetarian friend of yours.

Dana's Triple Tomato Soup

2011-09-14T11:58:00.002-08:00

I love hot soup on a cold day. Try this one.

Saute half a medium onion, chopped, in a little olive oil.
Add a clove of garlic, squished.

Pour in a can of Italian stewed tomatoes.
Add a couple of tablespoons of sun-dried tomatoes, chopped.
Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste.

Pour in a cup of chicken broth and a dollop of red wine.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for thirty minutes or so. As in let it reduce a little.

Garnish with homemade croutons and maybe a little shaved Parmesan and serve immediately.

Cook's homage:
*My recipe is a rif off of this one at BHG.com.

How to Cook With Lava

2011-08-05T15:38:00.002-08:00

From the

on the Big Island, a recipe for cooking a cornish game hen with lava.

So you know.

Read the full blog and look at some spectacular lava flow pictures here.

This is totally a hotel I would stay at. Make reservations here.

Turkish Mezes

2011-07-26T20:27:00.006-08:00

Mezes are sort of like tapas, little individual dishes hot or cold. We ate a lot of them in Turkey in last spring.

I've been doing my poor best to cook Turkish since I got home, and last Saturday I made mezes for my book club. This was the menu, which was a little tricky since I was not only feeding a vegetarian but someone recently diagnosed as lactose intolerant and alergic to gluten, too:

First Course: Cold Mezes

Hummus
Turkish salad
Cacik
Muhammara
White cheese, cubed and tossed in olive oil and spices
Artichokes, tossed in olive oil, garlic and sea salt
Olive medley

Second Course: Hot Mezes

White Beans
Lemon Couscous made with vegetable broth
Shrimp and Rockfish sauted in olive oil, butter and Turkish spices
Sauted green, red, yellow and orange sliced peppers
Dolmas
Potatoes with Spinach
Rice made with chicken broth and water

Served with toasted pita bread cut into triangles.

I never cooked a better meal. Someone said we should take a picture but then we were eating and there wasn't anything left to take a picture of. The White Beans were amazing, so was the hummus, and I was astonished at what you could do to couscous with just a lemon.

Update on July 31st: Val just posted this photo of my cold mezes course on her Facebook page, so somebody did take a photo after all!

Cook's notes:
*Lemon, garlic, olive oil and pomegranate molasses. Four essential ingredients if you're going to cook Turkish.

*Fresh seafood. I ate the best seafood of my life outside of Alaska in the Fethiye fish market, octopus and achovies and shrimp that you knew at first bite was right out of the water and cooked to perfection. I got my shrimp and rockfish from the Homer Farmer's Market that morning.

*Not a big fan of beans other than Mom's Beans, but the white bean meze in Turkey was fab and I was determined to at least try to repeat it at home. Here's the recipe I used:

Saute half a chopped onion in olive oil.
Add
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 can white beans (I used cannellini), drained
a couple of shakes of salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon mild chilli powder
8 ounces water
1 can of diced stewed tomatoes
6 cloves garlic, squished
1 teaspoon sugar
Juice of one lemon

Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cover. Cook for fifteen minutes and then turn off the heat and let sit for a couple of hours. Reheat and serve. A preferred main dish in my house from now on.

*Here's a good recipe for muhammara, a spicy red pepper paste with pomegranate molasses and garlic and walnuts that is to die for. It was included in every cold mezes selection we were offered in Turkey and we never once turned it down.

*In Turkey you order regular old rice and it comes to the table different every time. Sometimes they make it with chicken stock instead of water. Sometimes they will add diced onions. It is always delicious. I had some chicken stock in the refrigerator and I tossed it in and made up the rest of the liquid with water. It was great.

*The lemon couscous is dead easy: Make your couscous and add the zest and juice of one lemon. I added a little olive oil, just because.

*Here's the recipe I used for hummus, which people said was the best hummus they ever ate, and I apologize to whoever I stole it from but I can't remember the website:

2 cans chickpeas
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves, chopped roughly (don't make the food processor work too hard)
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 cup lemon juice, fresh squeezed (It's better than the stuff that comes in the plastic lemon!)

Boil chickpeas until mushy. Discard any skins that float to the top.
Pulse garlic and salt. Add tahini and lemon juice and pulse.
Add chickpeas with slotted spoon and pulse.
Use cooking water to thin to desired consistency.
The finished product seemed a little tart to me so I added some olive oil. As the guy at the restaurant said when he took the olive oil from our table to grease the squeaky hinge on the door, "Turkish mother." Olive oil is the Turkish mother's all-purpose remedy for just about anything.

*Yogurt is very big in Turkey, and served in many different ways (Remember to dry out your yogurt first.). Cacik is yogurt with diced or shredded cucumber, garlic and some minced mint leaves. Sometimes they'd drizzle a little olive oil on top. Yum.

*Sharyn brought the dolmas, which was good because mine were going to come out of a can.

Start eating Turkish! It's some of the healthiest, tastiest food you'll ever eat. And then, you know, you'll owe me.

Kirsten Dixon's Salmon Burgers

2011-06-29T07:11:00.002-08:00

How to make tasty sockeye salmon burgers

Sounds yummy, and smart about using the spoon, I'm always frustrated over leaving too much salmon on the bone after fileting.

Father's Day Salad

2011-06-19T13:15:00.006-08:00

Don't let a salad recipe make you drive to the grocery store, use what you've got. When he didn't have anything else on hand, my father would peel and julienne a raw potato and throw in it. Wasn't bad, either.

Today I started with this recipe

that came with a previous order from Full Circle Farms, along with a bunch of arugula, a couple of blood oranges and an avocado. I didn't have any of those things today, so I started with a navel orange. I zested the peel

and then juiced the orange.

I put the zest and the juice in a blender and added two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, two tablespoons of honey, and one quarter of a red onion, chopped (I didn't have any shallots, either). I added a few shakes of salt (I never add as much salt as recipes say to) and a few grinds of pepper and hit blend. With the blender running, I added three-quarters of a cup of olive oil (extra virgin).

My friend Mary the K always takes her salad greens out of the refrigerator an hour or so before she mixes up her salad, because she doesn't like anything cold on her teeth. I started doing that, and it makes a difference. This is a wonderful mesclun mix I got from the Homer Farmer's Market yesterday.

I peeled and segmented another navel orange and added it to the greens.

I added some dried cranberries.

And then the piece de resistance--I garnished with some very nice spicy, herby nuts I also got at the market (I'll have to check out Maura's Cafe down on Bunnell soon).

Et voila!

Cook's note:
*I used cranberries because they were what I had on hand. Might have been dried apricots or peaches or pears or mango or pineapple or apples. I've used them all at one time or another. Some are better than others but they all work.
*Dates do not work. Trust me on this. I think it has more to do with the texture than the taste.

Olive Oil Now Officially Good for You

2011-06-17T08:08:00.002-08:00

Click here to read the full story.

Cook's note:
Way ahead of them -- I've been buying the gallon jug-size of extra virgin at Costco for over a decade.

Fava Bean Soup

2011-05-21T16:14:00.002-08:00

I've loved fava beans since the day I was on book tour in Minneapolis and the author escort took me to a Greek restaurant and I was served a plate of them sauted in onions and garlic. I have tried to duplicate that recipe many times in the years since, but it's hard to do when you're starting out with dried fava beans.

Then I went to Turkey this spring, where fava bean puree is one of the many fabulous mezes with which they commonly grace their extremely fine tables, and I was hooked all over again.

So I was overjoyed when Full Circle Farms sent me fresh fava beans in this week's box. This is what I did with them.

Depod the beans and put them in a bowl of water. Go back to the office and edit another chapter, or wait fifteen minutes, depending on time in hand and your profession.

Rub each bean between your fingers, or one of those thin rubber mat jar openers KeyBank used to give new depositors, until the shell separates from the bean. This is a colossal pain in the behind, tedious and labor-intensive and by far and away the most trouble you'll ever go to to get any bean into your mouth, but it'll be worth it.

Discard the shells. (Did I really have to say that? No, I just wanted an excuse to post this photo. Who knows why I took it, other than I wanted to prove how hard I worked to make this dish.)

Put a little olive oil in a frying pan, and add some chopped onion. Saute for a minute or two, and then add the fava beans. Cover with a dollop of wine and some chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for ten minutes.

When the dinger goes off, add a chopped tomato, some squished garlic (okay, if you're me a lot of squished garlic), and some chopped fresh thyme and rosemary if you happen to have some growing in pots in your kitchen, which I do. Bring back to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for five more minutes.

Season with salt and pepper, and serve.

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. --Hannibal Lector

Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake

2011-04-04T09:12:00.003-08:00

Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake

My friend Joan in Cupertino, California, as is her wonderful wont, sent me a box of citrus from the trees in her backyard for my birthday. I took this picture of it and posted it on my Facebook page.

Which inspired fellow Facebooker Erin Bright to post a link to this recipe.

I know, you read the directions and you clutch, but I've made this twice now, to great reviews from everyone who has eaten it (my knitting group and the guy who came over for dinner last night). And I even screwed it up the first time by misreading the filling ingredients.

Essentially, this is a bread you slice before it's baked, and it's a big, wonderful mess when you pull it apart and eat it.

Cook's tip:
*I keep a cold house, so I must innovate new ways to make dough rise in under 48 hours. Here's one.

Cook's gratitude:
*To Joan, for the lemons and oranges.
*To Erin, for the recipe.
*To David, who answered my cry for help on the recipe blog with good and prompt advice.

Salmon Bouillabaisse

2011-03-23T13:35:00.006-08:00

It's that time of year when Alaskans start cleaning out their freezers of last year's salmon so as to make room for this year's. Here's a sort-of bouillabaisse made with half a filet of silver salmon out of the Kenai River, caught by Becky, also my deer liver provider last year. Love Becky.

Put a frying pan over medium high heat, and fry some chopped bacon in a little olive oil until it is crisp.

Add some chopped onion, chopped celery and chopped carrot. Saute for three minutes.

Add a chopped tomato, a diced potato, a chipotle chile, and about a tablespoon of tomato paste. I had a little broth left over from boiling a pork rib a couple of days ago so I added that, plus a glug of wine, plus enough water to cover. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for twenty minutes.

Put a heaping tablespoon of mayonnaise in a small mixing bowl. Whisk in a clove of squished garlic, a couple of healthy shakes of red pepper, and some chili powder. Go ahead, be brave, make it really spicy.

Remove cover and add skinned, cubed, deboned salmon filet. Cover, turn off the heat, and let sit for no more than two minutes. Remember the curse!

Use a slotted spoon to dip out solid ingredients and pour broth over last. Garnish with the spiced mayo and eat at once.

Cook's tip:
*I would have made garlic croutons if I'd had any bread.

Cook's caveat:
*The recipe below calls for red wine. I had white. I used it.

Cook's homage:
This meal was begun by reading the recipe for "Bobbie's Bouillabaisse" on pages 382-3 of The New Basics Cookbook.

Surprise Stir-Fry

2011-03-15T13:21:00.001-08:00

So, I had some Kodiak deer meat left over from the package my friend Becky sent me. Most of it had been sliced into steaks for a fabulous (she said modestly) dinner for a friend on Sunday, but it was too much for one meal, even for two people. I couldn't refreeze it, so I had to eat what was left over the next few days. What to do, what to do.

Yesterday, I cubed some of it and made black bean soup.

Today, I cubed some of it and made stir-fry.

I poured some olive oil into a wok over high heat.

I added the cubed deer meat and stirred it while it sauteed, about a minute or two.

I added a quarter of an onion, cut into one-inch pieces, and stir-fried for another minute.

I added the florets of two limp stalks of broccoli from the last Full Circle Farms delivery that had almost but not quite given up the ghost, and stir-fried another minute.

I added a clove of smooshed garlic, and then -- here's the surprise part of the recipe -- I added a couple of tablespoons of the broth leftover from yesterday's black bean soup that was sitting in a saucepan on the stove because I couldn't bring myself to toss it. I stir-fried for another minute, enough to heat the broth through and allow the garlic to perfume the mixture.

I added a jolt of soy sauce and served it over steamed jasmine rice.

The fire of the chili powder and the chipotle in the black bean soup was a little diluted from the day before but the flavors were still strong and unbelievably tasty.

Best stir-fry I've ever made.

Cook's tip:
*Be fine without the soy sauce, but then you should salt the meat while it's cooking.

Cook's plug:
*I get the majority of my vegetables from Full Circle Farms, one delivery of organically-grown fruit and vege every two weeks for $48.50. It's almost more than I can get through in two weeks (see limp broccoli above) but they tell you a week and a half in advance what they're sending, so I'm starting to plan menus around delivery days. Result: I'm eating a lot healthier, and a lot tastier.

Best Black Bean Soup Ever

2011-03-05T14:52:00.005-09:00

There is nothing in this world like a bowl of hot and hearty soup on a cold winter's day. As anyone knows who follows this blog, I love a good soup, but this may be my best effort yet.

Put a little olive oil in a saucepan over high heat. Add chopped onions and cubed pork and brown. At the last minute add some minced garlic.

Stir in chili powder, mix well. Add half a can of black beans.

Pour in enough chicken broth to not quite cover, and one chipotle chile. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let cook for three to five minutes, long enough to steep the flavors but not so long the beans get mushy.

While waiting, put some chopped cilantro in a bowl. Top with a big dollop of yoghurt.

Finish the soup with the juice of half a lime. Discard the chipotle chile and pour soup over yoghurt and cilantro. Eat immediately.

The best tasting soup I have ever made in my life.

Cook's tips:
*Add chili powder at your own discretion. The first time I made this, I put in a quarter teaspoon. This time, I put in half a teaspoon, and it was just about right. If you're fond of the roof of your mouth, you'll want to be careful.
*It helps to have a friend who went to India bring you back some chili powder from the local market. But I'm sure ordinary McCormick's chili powder works just fine, too. She said kindly.
*The first time I made this without meat. The second time, I used a piece of boneless pork rib. I'm betting chicken would work in this soup, too, and even beef for that matter.

Cook's homage:
*This recipe is a rif on the spicy black-bean soup Mark Bittman wrote about in his customizable soup column.

The I-Never-Know-What-The-Hell-To-Do-With-Kale Recipe

2011-02-12T09:00:00.007-09:00

So I signed up with Full Circle Farm last fall. Once every two weeks I drive into town to pick up a box of fruit and vegetables at Two Sisters Bakery (a nice excuse to pick up one of their fine americanos and a cinnamon roll, too).

I warned them (Full Circle Farm) that I travel a lot and that during the summer I wanted to support the Homer Farmer's Market, so that I'd probably be more on hiatus than on delivery. They said they were okay with that, and so far, so good. The quality of the produce has been great, fresh, crisp, juicy and tasty.

The diversity has been, well, diverse. Take kale.

I almost pulled a Rodney Dangerfield there and said, "Please." Kale is one of those vegetables I just don't get. I know it's good for me because it's dark green, but it's tough and chewy and really pretty tasteless and you have to de-stem it and worst of all it feels chalky on the fingers during prep. Ick.

Still. Full Circle Farm gives me only a few choices for vegetables I don't want and since I never want to see an eggplant when I open up that box, I am always going to get a few things I don't normally buy for myself. All experience is an arch wherethrough/Gleams that untravelled world...

This week I got a bunch of kale. What to do, what to do. Full Circle Farm always includes a couple of recipes and one of them was for a kale thing they suggested be served over rice.

So I adapted it as follows.

Put a little olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Brown a couple of slices of chopped bacon.

In the meantime, peel, core, and chop two wrinkled Fuji apples left over from the last Full Circle Farm delivery. Toss apples in some fresh squeezed lemon juice and set aside.

Wash, de-stem and slice one bunch of kale, repressing a shudder at how it feels against your skin.

Add two minced cloves of garlic to the bacon, and stir until fully mixed, a few seconds only.

Add chopped apple, stir thoroughly and set the timer for five minutes.

Add kale, stir thoroughly, and cook down for three minutes.

Finish with a glug of apple cider vinegar, cook just long enough to vaporize the liquid, salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Pretty tasty. The apples provide sweet, the bacon savory, and the vinegar a nice tangy finish. The kale is still chewy and pretty tasteless.

I thought about cooking up some quinoa and serving the kale mixture over it. I thought about it, but I didn't do it. It would make for a heftier meal, and quinoa never hurts anything I add it to.

Cook's note:
*Click here to read my previous post on quinoa, which I discovered in Peru last April.

Utility Belt Penne

2011-01-18T14:16:00.001-09:00

You know how Batman always has everything he needs fastened to his all-purpose, super-duper utility belt? In the same way, you've always got everything you need in the refrigerator for one-dish pasta.

Start with some olive oil. Add some chopped onion of any kind, yellow, green, sweet. Leeks work, scallions do, too. Saute for about two minutes.

Add a couple of cloves of sliced garlic, and a couple of sliced anchovies. Saute for another minute.

Add four or five Roma tomatoes, chopped, or a can of stewed tomatoes, or a can of chopped tomatoes. Add some hearty shakes of dried Italian herbs, stir, and cook down for a minute or two. Add salt, but only a little because there is plenty in the anchovies and capers and cheese, and pepper to taste. Add a pinch of sugar if you feel like it.

Add a cup or two of chicken broth. It's better if you make your own, but canned is fine. Add a glug or two of wine, red or white, whatever you have on hand.

Bring to a simmer, and add a couple of handfuls of penne pasta. Yes, I know you're supposed to cook it separately, but why dirty another pan, especially when the pasta will soak up all that lovely broth you're putting together?

Bring back to a simmer and let cook for twelve minutes, or until pasta is al dente. Feel free to test, you'll know it when you bite into it.

Just before serving, toss in a tablespoon or so of capers. Garnish with parmesan, the good stuff, the stuff you should always have on hand, and serve.

The Ultimate Mac & Cheese Recipe

2011-01-16T08:00:00.002-09:00

The Ultimate Mac & Cheese Recipe

Tailgater food, but I might give this recipe a shot with real cheese. I am a Velveeta-free zone.

Polenta with Spinach and Salmon

2011-01-12T12:08:00.003-09:00

When I first saw this recipe, I admit, my reaction was "Eeew." I like each of the individual ingredients but putting them together just seemed wrong. But I was hungry, I had all three ingredients on hand and not much else, and what the hell. Turned out to be one of the quickest, simplest, tastiest dishes ever.

1/4 cup polenta
1 cup water

4 ounces fresh spinach, cleaned and stemmed
1/2 tablespoon vinegar
salt to taste

1 small salmon filet, skinned and deboned

Preheat oven to 400F. Melt a pat of butter in single-serving baking dish, and swish around until the butter covers bottom and sides of dish.

In a small sauce pan, stir polenta into boiling water. Reduce to simmer and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. It will get very thick. Keep stirring or it will stick, or worse, burn. Spread polenta across the bottom of the buttered baking dish.

Wilt spinach in a bit of boiling water. Don't turn your back on it, it wilts very fast! Drain and chop spinach, and stir in vinegar and salt. Layer over polenta.

Put filet on top of spinach, and bake for ten minutes or until fish flakes.

It will come out of the oven ready to slide onto your plate, with a little coaxing from a spatula. Delish.

Cook's secret kitchen weapon:
A pair of needle-nose pliers. Perfect for pulling out those pesky pin bones. Be careful to wash the pliers and rub them down with WD-40 or Three-in-1 or silicone lubricant afterward.

Cook's homage: This recipe was adapted from the Polenta with Spinach and Fish recipe in the 1991 edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Deer Liver Pâté

2010-12-16T19:17:00.011-09:00

Oh, stop. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

3 tablespoons butter
1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound fresh deer liver, sliced
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons brandy
1 stick butter, chunked

Melt butter in frying pan over medium high heat. Saute apple and onion until brown, 5-6 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

In the same pan, adding more butter if you need to, saute deer liver with thyme, salt and pepper. Watch very carefully so you don't overcook. Deer liver takes longer to cook through than chicken livers. Fry it on one side for five minutes, then turn, and after another four minutes start checking it one piece at a time to see if it's still bloody. If it is, throw it back in the pan, but do not overcook.

When the liver is cooked through but not overdone, add brandy and apple and onion. Stir together over heat until liquid boils off, thirty seconds max. Remove immediately from heat and let cool for at least 10 minutes.

Cream butter chunks in food processor, add liver mixture, and puree. Game liver will take longer than chicken livers to puree, keep testing until the texture is smooth.

Serve on crackers. I like it on Triscuits garnished with slivers of apple. Used up my last apple in the recipe so this is the plain, unvarnished pâté here.

Cook's tip:
*Seriously, dudes. You do not want to overcook the liver. Equally, you do not want to undercook it, either, because that makes for one really unappetizing appetizer. Just don't leave the stove after you turn the liver the first time, and keep testing. The worst that can happen is you have smaller pieces for the food processor.
*Best apple to use is a Granny Smith, but any apple will work. I used a Honeycrisp for this batch because it was what I had.
*Best when served that day, but it will keep fine in the refrigerator for several days. Let it warm up to room temperature before serving.
*Substitute a pound of chicken livers if you're deer-deprived. They'll work fine.

Cook's homage:
To my Soldotna buddy Becky, who went mano a mano with the bears in Kodiak so I could have fresh liver this year.

Green Chili Creamed Corn

2010-12-09T17:55:00.008-09:00

While in Phoenix over the Thanksgiving holiday, my friends Jim and Susan, foodies of the first order, took me to dinner at a Cuban restaurant called Fuego Bistro. I ate some wonderful things there, including that amazing pernil asado (drool pools in my mouth as I type) but the one that stuck with me was the creamed corn with chiles. Best creamed corn I ever ate in my life.

So when I saw some fresh corn on the cob at the store I picked it up and brought it home and got out my Lee's Corn Cutter (which Susan's father, Rob, alerted me to a few years ago. It works great.). And this is what I came up with.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onions
2 teaspoons flour
1/4 cup canned chopped green chiles
1/2 cup milk
1 cup corn kernels

Put oil in small saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion until translucent, about 3 minutes. Whisk in flour, green chiles and milk, one at a time. Add corn, stir to mix, simmer for 10 minutes, and you're there.

Now that, friends, is what I call a side dish. Perfect with a pork chop pan-fried sloooooow. What, you never heard the Chenille Sisters sing "Low Gravy?" Tsk...

Cook's tip:
*Bet it'd be even better with jalapenos.
*I'm guessing frozen corn wouldn't make much difference. Stir it in and serve it up!

Leftover Squash Soup

2010-11-06T13:14:00.014-08:00

It snowed and stuck for the first time on Thursday, and when I came in from shoveling the deck I was cold and hungry. I wanted a mug of something hot, and coffee or cocoa wouldn't cut it. I looked in the freezer and found about two cups of broth left over from boiling some smoked ham hocks. In the refrigerator was a piece of squash that couldn't have been more than two months old, along with a Granny Smith apple so wrinkled it looked like a prune. Only, you know, bigger.

I dumped the broth into a glass bowl and thawed it in the microwave.

I peeled and cubed the squash and the apple (about 3 cups) and steamed them in a double boiler for twenty minutes.

I put two tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over high heat and sauted a quarter of an onion, diced, that hadn't quite begun to go that horrible translucent brown, three minutes. I added three cloves of garlic, slivered, that in fact had begun to go brown, one minute.

I added about three tablespoons of flour to the oil, butter, onions and garlic and whisked it in. I poured in the ham hock broth and whisked it in until it began to thicken, about five minutes.

I mashed the squash and the apple and stirred it into the broth, and then I pureed the broth in the blender and put it back in the pan and brought it back to a boil, just.

Cleaned out the refrigerator, and it tasted pretty darn good, too.

Cook's tip:
*You'll notice no salt or pepper. Didn't need pepper, and there was enough salt in the broth from the ham hocks. But that's just me.

Cook's shameless self-promotion:
*That elegant serving dish is a mug I created on my Zazzle store to help promote the publication of Though Not Dead, the 18th Kate Shugak novel. I'm always my own best customer.

Though Not Dead mug by danastabenow
Browse more Danastabenow Mugs

Chicken Tikka Masala. Sorta.

2010-09-17T13:17:00.014-08:00

Although this recipe will probably turn the hair of any true Indian cook pure white, it's a reasonable facsimile of the original, and a hearty meal.

Put

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground coridander
a couple of shakes of cayenne
1/4 teaspoon of table salt

in a small bowl and shake together. Take one half of one half of a chicken breast, deboned but with the skin on, and cover all sides with the spices. Put back in the bowl, cover with saran wrap, and refrigerate.

Whisk together

1/2 cup yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger

Set aside. Put 1/2 cup of jasmine rice on to cook.

In a small saucepan, saute

1 small onion, diced

until translucent, three minutes.

Add

1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 garlic clove, pressed
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 serrano chile, seeded and minced
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon sugar
a few shakes of table salt

Simmer the sauce for 15 minutes. In the meantime, get the chicken out of the fridge, dredge it through the yogurt mixture and cook in a little olive oil in a small saute pan on medium-low heat for 5 minutes each side. Let the chicken rest for five minutes right there in the saucepan with the heat turned off. Remove and cube the chicken.

Stir

1/4 cup of cream

into the sauce. Add chicken to the sauce, and stir in as much

chopped fresh cilantro

as the traffic will bear. Do not simmer the chicken in the sauce, you're good to go.

Serve over jasmine rice.

Cook's warning:
*It took me several tries to get the spices to where they wouldn't melt off the roof of my mouth, and I like spicy. Experiment until you get it right for you.
*If you like spicier, leave the serrano seeds in.
*Don't burn the chicken by cooking it on too high heat. Medium to low is just right, and five minutes each side and a five minute rest will get the job done.

Cook's tip:
*I peel the ginger, cut it in half and put it through the press right after the garlic. Saves time and dirties only one kitchen tool.
*The original recipe (see below) calls for crushed tomatoes in addition to the tomato paste. I am just too cheap a cook to open up a 16-ounce can of crushed tomatoes to use only a quarter of a cup. But if you have some left over from another recipe...
*You can make the sauce the day before and refrigerate until using.
*I haven't done it but I'm guessing you can do the same with the spiced chicken and the spiced yogurt.

Cook's confession:
*Yeah, I know, that's one quarter of a chicken breast. But they sell chicken breasts in two halves, and Some People really need things dumbed down.

Cook's homage:
*This recipe was stolen outright from the one in the September/October 2007 issue of Cook's Illustrated.

Focaccia

2010-08-27T23:08:00.014-08:00

Takes two days to make. Worth every minute.

The day before:

the biga

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup warm water
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

In a medium-size bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in flour until well mixed. Cover tightly with saran wrap and let sit overnight, or at least eight hours.

The day of:

the dough

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
5 ounces warm water

Dissolve yeast in water. Add yeast/water and flour to the biga and mix well. Cover tightly with saran wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

Add one teaspoon of kosher salt to the dough and fold in with a spatula. Treat the dough with respect, don't beat it to death. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, cover tightly with saran wrap, and let rise for 30 minutes.

Spray the spatula with Pam and fold the dough from the side of the bowl to the center six times, rotating the bowl a quarter turn each time. Cover tightly with saran wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.

Place baking stone in oven, and heat oven to 500F.

Spray the spatula with Pam and fold the dough from the side of the bowl to the center six times, rotating the bowl a quarter turn each time. Cover tightly with saran wrap and let rise for 30 minutes. The dough will have risen three times, 30 minutes each time.

Coat a 9" cake pan with two tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle the pan with 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt.

Spray Pam or oil on your hands, and gently scoop the dough from the bowl, folding the sides under until it turns into a gooey, sloppy, floppy, sticky loaf about five inches across. Trust me, this is a good thing.

Lay dough top side down in the cake pan. Cover it tightly with saran wrap and let rest for five minutes.

Remove saran wrap. Shake dough back and forth gently in the pan to coat it with the oil and salt. Turn the dough over and repeat.

Oil your fingertips and gently, respectfully press the dough out to the edges of the pan. It will be very bubbly. Take a dinner fork and poke holes in the dough, 25 to 30 times. Try to get all the bubbles.

Sprinkle with one tablespoon of the chopped fresh herb of your choice, or dried Italian herbs.

Put the pan on the baking stone in the oven, and turn the oven down to 450F. Bake for 25 minutes.

Take the pan out of the oven and set it on a rack for five minutes.

Remove from pan and let cool for 30 minutes. Eat.

Cook's homage:
*This recipe is adapted from the superb recipe in the September/October issue of Cook's Illustrated. That recipe makes two loaves, but the single feaster only needs one. Don't ask me how I know.

Cook's tip:
*The original recipe calls for instant or rapid-rise yeast, i.e., bread machine yeast. I only have active dry yeast, and there was plenty of water in the recipe to dissolve it in, so that's what I used. It works fine.

*This bread is best eaten the day it's baked. It won't keep.

*You don't have to buy a fancy baking stone. Mine is a 13-inch square ceramic tile, left over from building my house. It works just fine.

Cook's note to self:
*I should probably clean that off.

Cook's recommendation:
*This bread makes a great sandwich. Try one with tomatoes and mayo and a little basil. Be great with some mozzarella, too.

Gingerbread

2010-08-17T08:58:00.006-08:00

I love quickbreads for breakfast. The date nut bread in the Tassajara Bread Book is one of my favorites, and I've got a worked-over recipe for apricot nut bread that is to die for, and is also my favorite hiking bread.

When I was hiking the Coast-to-Coast Trail in England in 2005, we stayed at the Old Water View B&B in Patterdale, where for afternoon tea we were served gingerbread fresh out of the oven. It was some of the best quickbread I've ever put in my mouth, and I demanded a recipe. Of course it was in UK measurements (grams for cups) with different names for things (treacle for molasses), but I brought it home and I've been trying to recreate that taste sensation ever since.

I'm happy to report that I'm now pretty close to it.

1 stick butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup boiling water
3/4 cup golden syrup

2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons powdered ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

In a small bowl cream the butter with the sugar. Beat the eggs one at a time and and beat in to butter-sugar mixture. Add syrup and boiling water and beat in.

Sieve together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk in wet ingredients. Beat out all the lumps.

Pour into a well-greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour at 350F, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Heavy, rich, sweet and moist, a slice of this gingerbread will add exponentially to your morning cup of coffee experience, and it will definitely get you through to lunch.

Cook's preference:
*My friend Josie in Ireland turned me onto Lyle's Golden Syrup. Molasses (or treacle) is good, but I like the golden syrup even better.

Cook's tip:
*You can use an electric beater. I just use a whisk because the whisk is easier to hand.

*This is a heavy bread that slumps under its own weight. Be sure to beat each egg separately before adding for the best result. And don't despair when the bread sinks in the middle. It would have done that no matter what you did.

*Best to put a sheet of tin foil beneath the loaf pan in case the batter boils over, hits the bottom of the oven, and sets off the smoke alarm. Again.

*If you wrap it in tin foil it should keep for days, and when it begins to stale you can always toast it. It is also very well received when people come to tea. Serve it with whipped cream or cream cheese if you like.

Cook's homage:
*This recipe was freely adapted from the 1990 Fannie Farmer Cookbook, page 573.

And that's me on High Street on the Coast-to-Coast Trail. I am walking in the footsteps of the Roman Empire.

Thai Curry Salmon

2010-08-08T08:47:00.004-08:00

Mostly this post is to tell Pati how to poach salmon. She's very big with no fat cooking.

Cover a salmon filet with cold water and spices to taste.

Bring the water to a boil.
Immediately turn off the heat under the pan and let it sit for no more than 10 minutes.

Let it cool thoroughly, on the counter or in the fridge. The skin will peel off like a banana.

Cube and add to your soup just before the garnish, just long enough to heat the salmon through. Serve over jasmine rice.

You can eat poached salmon as is, in curry soups and bouillabaisse, on caesar salads, and if it starts to dry out before you manage to finish it off, it's perfect for salmon salad sandwiches.

Cook's tip:
If you're going to use this salmon in Thai Curry Soup, no spices at all, just plain water is your best option. Otherwise, sea salt and a sprig of fresh thyme and a little chopped onion and maybe a clove of sliced garlic are good.

Depending on the size of the filet, you'll want to adjust the cooking time. If you're uncertain, start checking at five minutes. Poke a fork into the thickest part of the filet, and when it flakes easily, it's done. Do. Not. Overcook.

Home-made croutons

2010-07-30T08:51:00.012-08:00

This is such an easy recipe that I'm kind of embarrassed to put it up here, but people rave about them when I serve them on my salads. Sometimes I'm hard put to keep their hands out of the croutons before I put them on the salad. I'm guessing most people think croutons only come in a Pepperidge Farm box.

I make a rustic loaf that I really love, but it's a big loaf and I'm only one person, so the heel inevitably goes stale. It curdles my soul to throw it out. Fortunately, I also make a killer caesar salad (courtesy of Van's class at the Marx Brothers Cafe, which I have taken three times and which is the only class I've ever attended for which you need a designated driver afterward).

First, trim the crust from the heel, then cube the bread.

Second, saute quickly over high heat in olive oil, sea salt, garlic powder and Italian herbs, until cubes are a golden brown.

Third, drain and cool thoroughly. And use lavishly.

Cook's tip:
Relax. You don't have to make your own rustic loaf. Nowadays most supermarkets have perfectly good artisanal bread in their bakeries. Safeway in Homer has a very nice como that I use whenever I've slacked off on the baking.

Croutons are great garnish for soups, too.

The pot and how to use it - Roger Ebert's Journal

2010-07-28T07:20:00.011-08:00

Missed this Ebert post on rice pot cookery the first time around. One of many money quotes:

Stews.

Like soup only with less water, Albert Einstein.

Your ingredients, (1) Any meat. Lamb, pork, beef, chicken, goat, wild boar, minotaur, hot dogs, ground beef.

I've only ever cooked rice and quinoa in my rice cooker. Now I see I need a 3-cup rice cooker. And some House of Tsang Saigon Sizzle Sauce.

And, you know, a half pound of minotaur.

And Ebert has written a rice pot cookbook, which you can pre-order here.

Basil Pesto

2010-07-17T13:37:00.003-08:00

Or, as I like to call it, summer in your mouth.

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or none at all, there is plenty of salt in the cheese)
2-3 cloves of garlic, pressed
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves

Put oil, Parmesan, nuts, salt and garlic in the blender and puree. Add basil, puree further. It's ready to eat.

Here are two of my favorite things to do with basil pesto:

Sort of Bruschetta

Toast a thick slice of rustic loaf until it's a nice golden brown. Spread with basil pesto. If you can, let it sit for a minute or two to allow the cheese to become one with the bread. Devour.

Basil Pesto Pasta with Shrimp

Cook penne according to the instructions on the package; drain.
Shell shrimp and boil for no more than two minutes. (Remember the penalty for the sin of disobedience!)
Toss pasta with shrimp and basil pesto to taste. Yummmmmmmmmm...

*Cook's tip:

The whole cooking of the shrimp thing--here's what I do. I put on the kettle while I'm shelling the shrimp. When the kettle is about to come to a boil and click off, I turn the heat on beneath a saucepan on the stove. I pour the water into the saucepan, where it comes back immediately to a boil.

Then I toss the shrimp into the boiling water, and set the timer for one and a half to two minutes. The water will not come to a boil again in that time but it doesn't matter, your shrimp will be perfect. Drain immediately, mix with the pasta and pesto, et voila!

Strawberry Smoothie

2010-05-27T15:00:00.004-08:00

I always succumb to the spring sale on strawberries at Safeway, and I always buy the big clamshell, and I am never able to finish it off before the remaining strawberries start to grow that gross fuzzy mold. So I've been experimenting with new things to do with strawberries, and I just made my first smoothie. Why didn't somebody tell me how good they are??? And how easy they are to make?

1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped and frozen
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon confectioner's sugar

Puree ingredients in blender, and try not to gulp it down. Breakfast of champions.

Cook's note:
*Storebought strawberries are never as sweet as the strawberries you grow in your garden, which is why I tossed in the sugar. I think it gives a real boost to the taste of the berries. Of course you don't have to add it, but if you do, don't use granulated sugar, it won't dissolve. You could try it with a sugar substitute, too (yecchhh).

*I was also thinking you could make this with one of those individual containers of strawberry yogurt and the frozen berries. Anything pre-sweetened is too sweet for me, but give it a try, you never know.

Saucy Shrimp

2010-05-27T12:28:00.009-08:00

Quick and delish.

chunk of butter (more than a teaspoon, less than a tablespoon)
one clove of garlic, squished
two tablespoons (or thereabouts) of sweet chili sauce
juice from half a lime
a dozen shrimp

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, stir for one minute. Add lime juice and chili sauce, cook for one minute more. Toss in shrimp, without or without shells. (Without shells is less messy to eat.) Cook for no more than two minutes. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve immediately.

Cook's curse:
The tenth circle of hell is reserved for people who overcook seafood. When I say two minutes I mean it!

Cook's note to self:
Next time serve over rice, which will save you standing over the sink spooning the sauce off the plate.

Cook's homage:
Adapted from Sam Sifton's Yucatan Shrimp recipe in the New York Times Magazine.

Quinoa Tabouleh

2010-05-10T13:25:00.009-08:00

I just got back from Peru, where I was introduced to quinoa. I had quinoa tabouleh, quinoa chowder, quinoa risotto, and quinoa souffle. After a while my friend Sharyn accused me of chosing every meal based on whether or not quinoa was served with it. My friend Sharyn was right.

Quinoa is called a supergrain, discovered and cultivated by the Incas in places like Moray (photo below). Wikipedia sez "...quinoa [is] an unusually complete protein source...it is being considered a possible crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned spaceflights."

Me, I just love the way it tastes. When I got home I hared down to SaveUMore and found a big bag of quinoa and now I'm cooking with it. First up, tabouleh, which they served us at Machu Picchu. Best tabouleh I ever ate.

1 cup quinoa, cooked and cooled
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 clove garlic, squished
6-10 cherry tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
1/2 cup fresh mint, roughly chopped
1/4 cup red onion, diced
salt and pepper

Toss together all ingredients and let sit for ten minutes. Serve with a big spoon because you won't be able to take big enough bites.

Cook's confession:
*The recipe I found in New Beginnings for regular tabouleh with bulgar called for cucumber, but I forgot it when I went to the store. It was fine without it.

*The cilantro was supposed to be Italian flat-leaf parsley. I bought the wrong stuff. I like cilantro better than parsley anyway.

Cook's tip:
*How to cook quinoa? One part quinoa to three parts water. Bring water to a boil, add quinoa, reduce to a simmer, and cook for fifteen minutes.

Potato Galette

2010-05-10T11:57:00.005-08:00

This is dead easy, all you need is a hot oven and a mandoline.

3 small potatoes
melted butter
grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 425F.

Set the mandoline to 1/8 inch. Slice potatoes.

Layer bottom of small cast iron skillet with one of the potatoes. Drizzle with butter, salt and pepper, and sprinkle with parmesan. Make sure none of the parmesan touches the edges of the skillet, or it'll burn and the smoke detector will go off. Again.

Repeat twice.

Heat skillet on high heat on top of stove until the spuds start to sizzle on the bottom. This doesn't take long, and don't overdo it. Mostly you're just heating the skillet so it doesn't have to heat in the oven. Cover skillet with foil and put in oven. Set timer for 25 minutes.

When timer goes off, remove foil from skillet and bake for another 25 minutes.

Remove, slice into fourths, and inhale.

*Cook's tip:
The original recipe I saw somewhere called for butter, but next time I'm trying olive oil. And I bet this recipe would work fine with cheddar, too.

*Cook's choice:
Original recipe says you're supposed to peel the potatoes. Bah.

*Cook's plug:
This is my mandoline. I like it a lot.

I first saw a galette recipe in On Rue Tatin, and I have made several fine messes in the kitchen trying to replicate it. This recipe is much simpler and has the added benefit of actually working.

Mark Bittman on salt

2010-05-07T07:00:00.007-08:00

Mark Bittman says all salts are not created equal.

I used to have a radio show on KSKA called Book Talk Alaska, where we read a book a month and invited people to call in to discuss it. One month we read Mark Kurlansky's Salt, and invited Alaskan chef Kirsten Dixon to be a guest on the show. Kirsten brought along four different kinds of salt, kosher, sea, table, and I forget the fourth one, and we sampled them on the air.

It was a revelation. I had no idea until then of the various tastes and textures and densities of salt. Except for popcorn and potatoes, I'm wary of salt in cooking, particularly in the amounts the recipe calls for. Half the time in cooking I forget to put salt in entirely, and when I do remember I'm using a quarter to a half of the recommended amount. I've started using sea salt in my rustic loaf.

I just got back from Peru, where I hiked through the Salinas salt pans. In its natural state Salinas salt contains no iodine. Back in the day the Incas noticed that coastal Indians had no goiters, and figured out this was due to iodine in their diet, so they made it a law that interior Indians had to include dried seaweed imported from the coast in their meals. There is dried seaweed for sale in the mercados today.

Nowadays the Salinas salt makers are adding iodine to their salt. You can buy it with or without. I bought some without, and I can't wait to try it out.

"Greek" Yoghurt

2010-03-20T08:14:00.007-08:00

Mark Bittman blogs about drying out yogurt.

I've been doing this for some time now, and using the result to substitute for sour cream and for a dessert base. Yesterday I stewed up some of last summer's rhubarb and spooned it over yogurt. Yum. The yogurt is also great laced with honey, an idea I got from my friend, Rob.

I line a mesh strainer with cheesecloth and set it on the rim of a large bowl, dump in the yogurt, tie off the top and walk away. Two cups of liquid drain off a 48-ounce tub of Nancy's plain yogurt in just an hour, leaving it thicker and in my opinion much tastier. And the result lasts forever in the refrigerator.

I love yogurt, but I've never cared for flavored yogurts, they are sweet enough to activate the gag reflex. This "Greek" yogurt, as Bittman calls it, is great for breakfast stirred with clementine segments, or homemade applesauce, or pineapple, or whatever kind of fruit you like that has a strong enough flavor to assert itself when combined with the yogurt.

March Paella

2010-03-18T10:27:00.006-08:00

This time of year is when Alaskans start pulling all that salmon, halibut, shrimp, and clams out of the freezer to make room for this summer's catch. March is when I start thinking about bouillabaisse and paella.

olive oil
1/4 cup onions, diced
1 clove garlic, pressed

1/3 cup long grain white rice
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup white wine
1 pinch saffron soaked in 2 tablespoons of chicken broth for at least 15 minutes

1 chicken thigh
six shrimp, shells on or off

salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Saute chicken thigh five minutes on each side, set aside.

Add onions, cook until translucent, three minutes. Add garlic and rice, cook for five minutes, stirring.

Add broth, wine and saffron, stir. Bring to a boil, add chicken thigh, reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for thirty minutes.

Add shrimp, cook for another three to four minutes, season with salt and pepper to taste, and try not to inhale it. God, it's good.

Cook's woe:
*Paella should have sausage, but I didn't have any when I threw this together for lunch. Brown three or four thick slices of polish sausage or chorizo or even Italian sweet sausage after you cook the chicken and set aside. Add it at the same time you do the shrimp.
*There should be clams, too. I didn't have any. Sob.

Cook's edict:
Lots of bad recipes tell you to add seafood too soon. About the worst sin you can commit with a spatula in your hand is to overcook seafood. Always, always when you're making a stew or a rissotto or any kind of one-dish recipe in which seafood is an ingredient, whatever seafood you're using goes in at the very last moment, cooking for three or four or at the red shift limit most five minutes.
If you violate this edict you will go straight to hell.

Mac and Cheese

2010-03-18T10:10:00.004-08:00

Comfort food, 45 minutes prep to table.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/4 cup onions, diced
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup milk

1 dry ounce macaroni, almost cooked

1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated fresh parmesan

Preheat oven to 375F. Cook mac in small saucepan, pour into colander, set aside. Or just leave it in the sink, that's what I do.

In same saucepan, heat oil over medium high heat, add onions, cook until translucent, about three minutes.
Add garlic, cook one minute more.
Add flour, stirring until absorbed by oil, about a minute.
Add milk. Use whisk to delump. Cook until thick and sauce-y.

Remove from heat. Put mac in a small, oiled Pyrex dish and cover with sauce. Combine breadcrumbs with parmesan and sprinkle evenly over the top. Bake for 30 minutes until browned and crusty.

Cook's tip:
*Stop cooking the mac while it's still a little too chewy. It will be done when it comes out of the oven.
*Mac and cheese works with all kinds of cheeses, cheddar, cambozola, parmesan, gruyere. Feta probably wouldn't work. Although...if that's what I had and I was jonesing for mac and cheese, I'd give it a try.
*Clarified butter can be substituted for the olive oil, or use equal parts each.

Cook's discovery:
*I found the perfect single feaster-sized baking dish in a hardware store in Achill Sound, Ireland. Who knew?

Pati's Nuclear Fission Pasta

2010-02-28T11:36:00.006-09:00

This recipe is named for my friend, Pati. I started this blog in part for her. Pati loves to eat but she hates to cook. I'll never forget her expression of horrified fascination as she watched me make a Caesar salad once when a bunch of people were over for dinner. "I will never do that," she said.

Another time another bunch of us were in Spain, and I put together a pasta sauce from what was in our rented apartment, some tomatoes going soft, the last cloves of a head of garlic, some old spices left behind by the people who had rented the apartment before us. You would have thought I had invented nuclear fission right there in San Sebastian.

When I told her about this blog, she had one request. "Tell me how to make that pasta you made in Spain. I made it a couple of times after we got back and then I forgot."

So here it is.

1-2 ounces pasta, cooked (angel hair is best, but you can use any pasta, even macaroni if that's what you've got)
Half a can of Italian stewed tomatoes with juice, or half a can of plain stewed tomatoes with juice, or one large fresh tomato, chopped
One leek, sliced, or half a small onion, diced
One clove garlic, peeled and pressed
One or two anchovies, pressed (optional, don't think I had those on hand that night in Spain)
six Kalamata olives, halved, optional
a tablespoon of capers, drained, optional
A dollop of chicken broth, optional
A dollop of wine, optional
A couple of shakes of Italian herbs, less if you're using canned Italian stewed tomatoes (Because, Pati, there are already herbs in them.)
Salt and pepper to taste

Pour a little olive oil into a small frying pan over medium high heat. Add leek and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes.

Stir in garlic and anchovies, cook about 1 minute.

Add tomatoes, chicken broth, white wine, olives, capers, herbs, salt and pepper. Reduce to simmer and let sauce cook down to reduce liquids, about five minutes.

Toss with pasta, garnish with shavings of fresh Parmesan, and serve immediately, preferably with a slice of rustic bread so you can sop up the juice.

Cook's tip:
*If you like your pasta a little spicier, add a shake of red pepper flakes.
*Add a few slices of Italian sausage, sauted, for a more robust meal.
*Sometimes I'll start with a couple of slices of bacon, chopped and fried. Come on, everything good starts with bacon.
*Some people might like to add a pinch of sugar.
*Honestly? As tasteless as store-bought tomatoes are, I like canned tomatoes better in this dish.

Cook's confession:
*This is not nuclear fission. This is everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pasta sauce, whatever you've got on hand that you think might taste good or that you want to use up before it goes bad, or both. Be brave! Throw it in! Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, and next time you make this recipe you'll know.

Leftover Huevos Rancheros

2010-02-27T09:00:00.006-09:00

As in made from leftover ingredients from other recipes, and one lone, limp leek rescued from the vegetable bin.

1 corn tortilla
1 leek, sliced
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
1 half can of Italian stewed tomatoes, drained and chopped
2 canned whole green chiles, chopped
2 eggs
green chile sauce

Fry tortilla in a little olive oil over medium high heat, until just this side of crisp. Okay, stiff. Drain olive oil from tortilla into pan, remove to plate.

Leave the frying pan on the heat, add leek, saute, stirring, until limp and translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add garlic, green chile and tomatoes. Stir to combine, move to back burner on low heat to keep warm and to reduce liquids.

On front burner, crack two eggs into a second frying pan over medium to medium high heat. Set the timer for 3 minutes exactly. (The whites will be done and the yolks will be just runny enough.)

Turn off both burners. Pour sauce on tortilla, put eggs on sauce, and pile on as much green chile sauce as the fire code will allow. Yum.

Cook's choice:
*If I'd had some plain yogurt or sour cream, I would have added a dollop.
*And if I'd had some cilantro I would have chopped it and sprinkled it over the yogurt.
*Substitute onion for leek if that's what you've got.

Cook's tip:
*I got that Hatch Green Chile Sauce from the Terra Verde Farms booth at the Scottsdale Farmer's Market. It's really good, best I've ever had out of a jar.

Cook's dictum:
*Fresh eggs. Really fresh eggs, as in from local chickens. I'm not proud, I'll use anything out of a can or a box if I have to, but fresh eggs are so worth any effort you make to seek them out.

Dana's Quesadillas

2010-02-04T12:03:00.008-09:00

I love pretty much anything to do with tortillas.

Dana's Quesadillas

2 canned green chiles, diced
1/4 - 1/2 cup diced onion
1 clove garlic, pressed
olive oil
2 ounces cheddar, diced
2 corn tortillas

Saute chiles, onion and garlic in oil over medium high heat, three minutes.
Move to bowl, toss with cheddar.
In the same pan, add a little more oil and brown a tortilla on one side. Flip, add half of the chile mixture, and fold. Cook until cheese melts, two-three minutes. Remove to warmed plate. Repeat.

Garnish with yogurt or sour cream, salsa, and cilantro. Serve immediately.

Cook's dilemma:
*Trying to use up the yogurt and green chiles leftover from the posole recipe before they start to grow mold in the refrigerator.
*Trying to use up the cilantro from the Thai curry soup recipe before it turns black.

Cook's rave:
*Olive oil comes in a spray can (I know, I was surprised, too) which is useful for cooking the tortillas in this recipe. I bought it originally to spray bread dough between rises. I feel a lot better about using it than Pam.

Cook's tip:
Of course, tortillas never come in packages of less than ten, and of course they're going to dry out in the refrigerator before a single feaster gets them all on the table. This irritates me. So, you know those little pottery teddy bears that you soak in water for 15 minutes and put in the canister to keep your brown sugar from drying out? Guess what? If you stick the leftover tortillas in a Ziploc with one of those teddy bears, your tortillas last a lot longer.

Posole

2010-02-03T01:00:00.003-09:00

My friend Bob used to work on the Fort Union National Monument in northern New Mexico. There he and his wife Mary introduced me to New Mexican cuisine, like choosing Christmas when asked which chili sauce you want and Frito pie. This is my favorite.

Posole

1 chicken thigh
chicken broth
water

one half can white hominy
one small can diced green chiles

sour cream or yogurt
cilantro

Put thigh in small saucepan and add one part broth to one part water, just enough to cover the meat. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for one hour. Remove thigh and set aside. Let both cool.

Debone thigh and pull meat to pieces with a fork. Skim fat from broth and return to stove. Add meat, hominy and green chiles. Bring to a medium boil and cook for five minutes, heating through all ingredients.

Garnish with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt and as much cilantro as the traffic will bear. Serve immediately.

Cook's choice:
*I use a chicken thigh partly because I prefer dark meat and partly because one chicken thigh is exactly the right portion for one person. You can get them in packages of four at the supermarket and freeze them individually in Ziploc bags at home. With a whole or even half a breast you'll have leftovers, and as you know we're practicing leftover avoidance on this blog.
*Apropos of which, I have yet to figure out what to do with the leftover hominy. I don't like it much, except in this dish. Mostly I just have posole twice in one week. It isn't a hardship, especially since I can't find plain yogurt in anything less than a 32-ounce container. Sigh.

aha! a possible use for leftover coconut milk

2010-02-02T06:55:00.004-09:00

Remember the leftover coconut milk in the Thai Curry Soup recipe? Mark Bittman may have just galloped to the rescue in this recipe for Coconut-Braised Beef. I'll noodle around with it and see if I can come up with a feast for one. Stay tuned.

(Also trying to figure out a recipe for chicken tikka masala for one. Now that's a challenge.)

Pasta Puttanesca

2010-01-26T13:30:00.013-09:00

Remember the cook's rant about leftover ingredients on Mom's Beans? Here's where I'm using some more of the can of tomato paste I opened for the Coq au Vin. I really like the spiciness the red pepper flakes gives this recipe, and truthfully, I usually put in a half a teaspoon of them.

Pasta Puttanesca

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
2 anchovy filets, pressed
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon Italian herb mix
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3/4 cup of canned diced tomatoes (half a 13.5-ounce can)
1 tablespoon capers
1/4 cup of pitted kalamata olives, sliced
fresh ground pepper to taste
1-2 ounces of angel hair pasta, cooked al dente

Pour oil into a small saucepan over medium high heat. Add onion and cook until they start to brown, 7-8 minutes. Add garlic, anchovies, and red pepper flakes, cook one minute. Add tomato paste, stir until well mixed, one minute.

Reduce heat to medium. Add tomatoes, capers, olives, and spices. Stir until well mixed, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook fifteen minutes.

Pour pasta into sauce and stir until coated. Serve immediately.

Cook's choice:
*I run the anchovies through my press right behind the garlic. Works fine, saves time.
*With the anchovies, you don't need any extra salt.
*About herbs. Of course fresh herbs are always best, and in the summer I grow my own rosemary and thyme and sometimes I can even sweettalk a basil plant into sticking around for more than a week. But in the winter, a teaspoon of McCormick's Tuscan Style Italian Seasoning works in loco herbas just fine.

Cook's rant:
*On what planet does it make sense that a half gallon jug of pitted kalamata olives costs a buck less than a twelve-ounce jar of kalamata olives with the pits still in?

Thai Curry Soup

2010-01-26T13:30:00.012-09:00

Stove to bowl, twenty, twenty-five minutes max.

Thai Curry Soup

3/4 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon red Thai curry paste

1 half medium onion, chopped
1 medium potato, chopped
kernels from one cob of fresh corn

2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3-4 drops of fish sauce
1 Thai pepper, sliced
3-4 leaves Thai basil
half a lime
cilantro

Put coconut milk and water into a saucepan over medium high heat. Whisk in curry paste. Add onion, potato and corn, bring to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 15 minutes.

Add honey, soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper and basil. Bring back to a boil, just. Finish with the juice from the lime. Garnish with lots of cilantro, and serve immediately.

Cook's choice:
*Don't ever substitute lemon for the lime. Don't ask me how I know.
*There isn't enough cilantro in the world for me, hence the pile you see in the picture.
*Today there was corn in my soup because it's what I had in the refrigerator. I've also added bok choy, cabbage, bean sprouts, and I forget what else.
*This soup is also great served over steamed jasmine rice, but it's best that way when you don't have potatoes in the soup. Who needs two starches at one sitting?

Cook's rant:
*Again, with the coconut milk there is the problem of leftovers. In Homer I can only find the 13.5-ounce cans. Since coconut milk separates in the can this involves getting it all out with a spatula, whisking it together, measuring out what you need at the moment, and then finding a container for the rest so you can stow the leftover in the fridge. Midtown Market in Anchorage has the individual portion cans, and you can substitute one of those plus one can of water for the amount above.

Cook's homage:
This recipe was [very, very freely] adapted from the Bastyr University Cookbook. If you're ever in Seattle, go eat in their cafeteria.

Coq au Vin

2010-01-16T01:00:00.000-09:00

By now you've guessed how much I love one-pot recipes. So here's a two-pot recipe just to keep you on your toes.

Coq au Vin

1 cup wine
1 cup chicken broth
2 dried morel mushrooms
1 teaspoon Italian herbs
1 bay leaf

1 slice bacon, diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 chicken thigh, seasoned both sides with salt and pepper

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 dried morel mushrooms
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon flour

1 teaspoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon wine

Pour wine and broth into a small saucepan with shrooms and herbs. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook twenty minutes.

In the meantime, pour oil into a medium saucepan on a medium burner and add bacon. Reduce to low and cook until bacon is crisp. Remove bacon, set aside. Bring heat up to medium high and brown chicken thigh on both sides, about two minutes a side. Remove chicken thigh, set aside.

Pour out all but one tablespoon of fat. Reduce heat and add 1 tablespoon of butter, scraping like mad to get up all those delicious brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add onions and cook until translucent, two to three minutes. Add garlic and stir until well mixed. Add tomato paste and stir until well mixed. Add flour and stir until well mixed. Add wine-broth-shroom mixture and stir until well mixed. Return bacon and chicken to pan. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for twenty-five minutes.

Remove chicken and mushrooms and set aside. Remove bay leaf and discard. Add one teaspoon of butter and one tablespoon of wine to sauce and bring to a simmer. Cook uncovered for two or three minutes, stirring.

Slice morels, and return them and the chicken to the pot. Reheat and serve with the ubiquitous (at least at Chez Stabenow) slice of artisanal bread.

Cook's choice:
*About the wine. Red is best, but sometimes my leftover wine is white, and I'm not going to open a whole bottle of red for just one cup plus one tablespoon. I use what I've got.
*The little bit of olive oil is just to keep the bacon from sticking.
*About the bacon. Joe Haldeman says the best way to cook bacon is in the nude. I won't go that far, but I do say put the bacon on the lowest heat on the smallest burner and just walk away for ten minutes.
*Try to remember to get the bacon out of the freezer early enough so a slice will peel off easily when it comes time to cook it. I never do, and I don't know how many more times I can microwave that package of bacon and refreeze it before contracting E. coli. And then no more Kate Shugak novels for you!
*Wow, those morels really blew up. Given how much they cost, next time I might put in just one.

Cook's homage:
*This recipe was shamelessly adapted from the Coq au Vin recipe in the November 2006 Cook's Illustrated, which is superb.

Mom's Beans

2010-01-15T10:30:00.001-09:00

Not really Mom's Beans, of course, because Mom made a pot big enough to feed a squad of Marines, and this is a blog about cooking for one. I'm delighted to report the result tastes (and smells!) just as good as the original.

Mom's Beans

2 slices of smoked ham hocks
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
1 bay leaf
fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 or 3 shakes of poultry seasoning
3/4 cup of canned pinto beans, not drained (half a can)

Put ham hocks into a small saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cook for one hour.

Add the rest of the ingredients, bring back to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cook for ten minutes more. Don't let the beans get mushy.

Serve with a slice of artisanal bread, because you won't want a drop of the broth to go to waste.

Cook's choice:
*Trust me, you get all the salt you need from the ham hocks. Add more and it will be inedible.
*If the ham hocks in the meat section of your grocery store are whole, the butcher will slice them for you. Very important! One of the things that makes this dish taste so good is boiling out the marrow.

Cook's rant:
One of the biggest problems in cooking for one is the leftovers, and I don't mean the leftover cooked food, I mean the leftover uncooked food, like the other half of the can of beans in today's recipe. Cooking for one without wasting a lot of food means that when you buy a can of beans for this recipe, you should be thinking about what you're going to use the other half for tomorrow. I'm thinking refried beans. With what, though? Hmm...

Cheesy Potato Soup

2010-01-11T08:25:00.001-09:00

I just came back from a two-mile walk, it's twenty degrees and snowing and I feel like a perambulating Popsicle. I need a hot, thick, tasty soup, and most of all I need it fast. Here goes.

Cheesy Potato Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup chicken stock
1-2 ounces cambozola cheese
1 medium cooked potato, diced

Pour olive oil into saucepan over medium high heat.
Saute onion until it softens, about three minutes.
Add garlic, saute one more minute.
Whisk in flour.
Whisk in milk and stock.
When mixture begins to thicken, add cheese. Whisk until melted.
Add potato, stir until heated through, two to three minutes.

Add a pinch of turmeric or paprika for pretty and serve immediately with a slice of artisanal bread.

Cook's choices:
*There is enough salt in the cheese for me and I don't think it needs pepper, but have at it.
*Staple cheeses in my refrigerator are cambozola, Dubliner, and parmesan. This soup works with all of them.
*This soup works well with broccoli and cauliflower, too.
*Cold boiled potatoes are always handy.
*Homemade chicken stock is always best, but canned won't kill this soup.

A Feast for One

2010-01-04T08:07:00.000-09:00

I love to cook, and I love to eat.

I have lots of cookbooks, but my two no-fail standards are The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (best quiche crust recipe I've ever found) and The New Basics Cookbook (yes, I think it's better than their Silver Palate).

The problem is that none of them tell me how to cook a meal for less than four, and I'm single.

Which means that when I make Van's Caesar Salad (Marx Brothers Cafe, Anchorage, I've taken his Caesar salad class three times), I eat it all. Yes, all three cloves of smashed garlic, the three (or seven or eight) anchovies, the coddled egg, the lemon juice, the dash of balsamic vinegar, the third of a cup of olive oil, the homemade croutons, the quarter cup (maybe more, and not including the taste test) freshly shredded Parmesan, and the entire head of romaine.

So either I cook and eat too much, or I don't cook. The first has its inevitable effect on my girlish figure, and the second is no fun.

So part of what I want to do here is blog about my experiments in breaking down recipes for four (or eight or twenty-five) into one-portion, or at least smaller sizes. I welcome all comments, particularly from other single people who have experienced the same frustration I have in finding recipes for one.

Bread recipes don't count.