Food
Sunday, April 20th, 2008Life in the Slow Lane - Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook
Americans are known throughout the modern world for their love of new technology in the mechanical and electronic realms. Any piece of equipment or tool that can do the job better and faster is immediately embraced and touted. So who could have predicted the success of a kitchen appliance that does the job more slowly? -From Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook, page 1-
I decided to live life in the slow lane this weekend, cooking from Beth Hensperger’s wonderful cookbook - Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook. I became an instant fan of Hensperger when I began using her Bread Machine Cookbook: The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. I have yet to find a bread recipe there which isn’t delicious…and my copy of the cookbook has worn edges, food dripped pages, and sprawling notations throughout.
Hensperger collaborated with Julie Kaufmann to write her Slow Cooker Cookbook: ‘We found the slow cooker style of cooking is designed to complement the way we live- it is time conscious, economical, energy conscious, and reliable. We cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients, and we could cook the same dishes as easily for a dinner party as for a family supper.‘ The authors begin by giving a history of the slow cooker - noting that the Rival company developed this new appliance in 1971, marketing it as a tool for the working woman who wanted to serve her family homemade food despite her long hours away from the home. Slow cooking actually has its roots many years before Rival made it appealing to busy women - the technique of putting many root vegetables and tough meats in a burning fire pit (sometimes for up to 24 hours) to tenderize and meld their flavors was used by indigenous people in prehistoric times. Slow cooking is moist-heat cooking - cooking foods in a closed environment to utilize hot liquid in breaking down plants with lots of fiber, or meats with lots of connective tissue.
Among other things Hensperger and Kaufman provide information on shapes and sizes of slow cookers, temperature settings, high altitude cooking, and guidelines for adapting conventional recipes to slow cooking. All the information is organized for quick reference. The cookbook is broken up into sections including porridges to soups to rices and grains to main courses (by type) to desserts, jams, butters and compotes. Each recipe specifies the size of cooker best suited to the recipe as well as setting and cook time to be used.
I decided to cook from several sections of the cookbook: From the Porridge Pot; The Slow Cooker Soup Pot; Poultry, Game Birds, and Rabbit; and Slow Cooker Puddings, Cakes, and Breads. For all the dishes (except the oatmeal and tapioca pudding) I used Rival’s large Smart Pot (model #3850) which allows the cook to chose high or low setting and set a timer. It also has a warming feature.
Thursday Evening
Orange Hoisin Chicken (page 271) combines orange juice concentrate, honey, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, fresh ginger, garlic, sesame oil and frozen boneless chicken breasts to create a delicious meal. The ginger and garlic meld together for a subtle, yet delectable flavor. The recipe indicates that sprinkling toasted sesame seeds on top of the chicken is optional - but I would strongly suggest following this step as it adds a wonderful nutty flavor to the dish. Toasting sesame seeds takes only a few minutes in a dry fry pan, and is well worth the effort. I paired the dish with American Basmati and Wild Rice (Safeway Select brand) which complimented the dish without overpowering it. I also whipped up a simple, baby green salad with Italian dressing. This is a dish I would make again.
Friday Afternoon
Friday was a cold, breezy day in Northern California - the perfect weather for soup and a loaf of hot, homemade bread. Minestrone Soup (page 63) uses a good amount of fresh vegetables: yellow onion, carrots, celery, zucchini, and Swiss Chard. It also requires canned red kidney beans, frozen baby lima beans, fresh parsley, a can of whole tomatoes, canned (or homemade) chicken broth, some type of macaroni or shell pasta (I used cappelletti), and a dry red wine. It gently cooks for about 8 hours (times may vary according to your machine) and fills the house with a mouthwatering smell. This recipe required the vegetables (except for the Swiss Chard) to be sauteed before being added to the pot. The result was a delicious, flavorful soup. I accompanied it with one of my favorite recipes from Hensperger’s bread machine cookbook: Sour Cream Rye (page 139). This bread is very moist and is a perfect addition to any vegetable based soup. This meal was delicious with a glass of BV Pinot Noir (which was also the wine I used in the recipe).
Saturday Morning
My husband and I woke to hot Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal (page 28) on Saturday morning. I prepared the recipe the evening before and let the cooker cook all night. This was my first experience with my small Rival slow cooker (model #3215) which does not have a choice of settings nor a timer. I wasn’t sure at what temperature I was cooking - and as it turned out, the cooker got very hot causing the oatmeal to stick to the bottom. The porridge was just okay - a little too bland for my taste. If I were to make it again, I would first spray the cooker with nonstick, butter flavored spray and add more cinnamon.
For dinner, I prepared Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken with Potatoes and Mushrooms (page 285) which is cooked on a high setting using a 4 pound broiler chicken, lemon, paprika, parsley, onion, garlic, soy sauce, Yukon Gold potatoes and fresh mushrooms. This recipe had a mistake in it (maybe two mistakes) in that it failed to tell me when to add the mushrooms. I decided to add them on the top along with the potatoes. It also did not indicate that the potatoes should be halved or quartered…and since they were small, I simply put them in whole. This turned out to be a mistake as they did not cook through. At 3.5 hours, I removed them, halved them and returned them to the pot. Even still, they were a bit undercooked at 5 hours (a half hour PAST the estimated cook time). Despite this, the meal was actually very flavorful and the chicken was done perfectly. The onion and lemon flavors melded beautifully and gave the dish an elegant taste. I would make this dish again, but would quarter the potatoes before adding them to the pot.
For dessert, I cooked Tapioca Pudding (page 432), an old favorite from childhood. Once again I used my small slow cooker, but this time (as advised in the recipe) I sprayed the inside of it with non stick vegetable spray first. The pudding was absolutely delicious topped with whipped cream. It made four small servings, which my husband and I consumed all in one sitting!
Concluding Notes
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed cooking from this cookbook. There are many recipes I did not try, but which I marked to make at a future date. A sampling includes: Corn Chowder (page 70), Cream of Artichoke Soup (page 73), Lazy Day Braised Pot Roast (page 316), Roast Pork With Apples (page 359), Fresh Raspberry Bread Pudding (page 437), and Chocolate Bread Pudding (page 438).
As with Hensperger’s bread machine cookbook, this is one I can highly recommend.
*NOTE: Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
A Weekend of Cooking - Gardeners’ Community Cookbook
As part of the Soup’s On Challenge, I immersed myself in Smith & Hawken: Gardeners’ Community Cookbook this weekend and made several recipes over a two day period. This cookbook came about through a community effort of more than 350 gardeners from around the United States, including some well known professional chefs like Barbara Kafka and Sheila Lukins. Victoria Wise has written 10 cookbooks - and if they are all as wonderful as this one I will have to go looking for them.
Wise divides this cookbook up into ten sections: Starters, Salads, Soups, Pasta Aplenty, Main Dishes, Vegetable Sides, Sauces/Salsa/and Pestos, Pantry Perks, The Bakery, and Sweets. She not only includes a recipe index, but also a contributor’s index for those cooks who want to try a specific chef’s recipe. Interspersed throughout the book are interesting facts about food, technique, and tools of the trade. The recipes are easy to read and follow and include a short blurb by each contributing cook.
I chose to create two dishes for Saturday evening: Artichoke Supreme (page 277 - from Vegetable Sides), and Grilled Chicken Salad with Roasted Red Bell Pepper Dressing (page 79 - from Salads).
Artichoke Supreme requires some time to prepare - including about 40 minutes for boiling the artichokes. During that time, I prepared the stuffing using sweet onion, 2 medium tomatoes, chopped fresh basil, and bread crumbs from a loaf of good, day old bread. This is a dish which can be served hot or cold - my husband and I ate it hot on Saturday, and ate the leftovers cold for lunch on Sunday. I liked it better cold. I also thought it would have been tastier with melted butter dripped over it before adding the stuffing. But, regardless, it was a satisfying dish with plenty of flavor.
The grilled chicken salad was a disappointment since I used salad greens which were too tender to hold up to the hot chicken. The recipe called for hearty greens (arugula, watercress or frisee), but my supermarket didn’t carry those, so I substituted baby lettuce to the recipe’s detriment. On the plus side, the roasted red pepper dressing (made with roasted red bell pepper, roasted garlic, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar) was outstanding - flavorful and not overpowering, but rich enough to stand up to the chicken. I think this would also taste wonderful over steak.
This evening’s menu utilized some leftovers from Saturday to which I added Rosemary-Roasted Walnuts (page 3 - from Starters), Deviled New Potatoes (page 5-6 - from Starters), and Spinach and Strawberry Salad (page 50 - from Salads).
None of these dishes was difficult, but the Deviled New Potatoes is a bit fussy and takes some time to prepare. It is well worth the effort, however. Delicate, creamy and with a bit of crunch from the diced celery, carrots, sweet pickles, and scallion…it makes a luscious side dish with left over chicken drizzled with roasted bell pepper dressing. The spinach and strawberry salad with Kentucky salad dressing (made with olive oil, cider vinegar, sugar, minced onion, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and a dash of Worcestershire sauce) provides the bit of sweet to this meal. The roasted walnuts would have made a nice addition to the salad, but my husband and I ate them by the handful instead. This meal, served with a cold glass of Hayes Ranch Chardonnay (Central Coast-California), was satisfying and filling. My husband’s favorite dish was the spinach salad, with the deviled new potatoes coming in a close second.
As an aside - I would recommend purchasing an immersion blender if you don’t have one. It made preparing the dressings for these dishes a snap. I love mine and don’t know what I did before I got it.
I’m really happy I joined this cooking challenge as I’ve had this fantastic cookbook on my shelf now for more than a year without having made a single recipe until this weekend! This is a cookbook I can recommend, especially if you are looking for a special recipe to serve to friends fresh out of the garden.
*NOTE: Please click on the photos above to view them in a larger size.
Monday, January 15th, 2007
The Piker Press - Article Published
I’ve been in a writing rut for months now. Call it exhaustion or burn out or just plain laziness … but, I haven’t been writing. Until last week, when I decided to write a food article called Bananas Anyone? for The Piker Press. It will be on the site all this week. Hope you’ll go take a look!
I have many articles and stories, and even a couple of photographs published on this site; but even if I didn’t, I’d tell you to go visit. Their ezine is one of the best on the web…a talented group of writers and poets, most of whom met while doing NanoWrimo one year.
One of my 2007 “resolutions” is to get back into the habit of writing…whether it be on my blog, just for fun, or to submit to The Piker Press or other markets. I have a Nano Novel sitting in my files just waiting to be edited and rewritten…maybe 2007 will be the year I actually get it done!
Bread Making
I used to think I would bake fresh bread from scratch; kneading the elastic dough with flour covered hands; letting it rise only to punch it down again; shaping the dough into a monstrous loaf that would yeild a thick, crispy crust. I imagined I had time for this kind of thing. I romanticized the process, bought heavy books about the different types of bread, and dreamed of owning a huge, commercial oven that could bake three loaves at the same time. Of course, I never did any of this.
So you can imagine my delight when I received a bread machine as a wedding gift nearly two years ago. Now perhaps I could bake bread; maybe not the old fashioned way; but it would be warm and fresh and made from scratch nonetheless.
My first attempt was disappointing. I used the little pamphlet that came with the machine; I neglected to correct for baking at elevation; I used all purpose flour rather than bread flour. The result was a dense, hard loaf that was dry and unappealing. I tossed the whole thing into the garbage.
I decided I needed better instructions. I purchased a cookbook made especially for bread machines and have never looked back since. Beth Hensperger (who has written other large tomes on bread making) has written a fabulous cookbook called The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. She explains succinctly how to adjust ingredients for elevation; she talks about different kinds of yeast, and flour. She has created a fool proof instruction manual for making bread in a bread machine. The best part of her book is the vast choices she offers. The book is divided into sections such as: Tradtional Loaves, Earth’s Bounty, Sweet Loaves and Express Lane Bread. She provides a brief description of each type of bread and gives instructions for both 1-1/2 pound loaves and 2 pound loaves. I have yet to make a loaf that has not come out perfectly.
So now, when the mood strikes me, I can spend fifteen minutes dumping ingredients into my bread machine, flick a switch and in just over 3 hours a loaf of bread appears. It is the perfect solution for someone who has no time to bake bread, but longs to do so anyway.
Monday, February 21st, 2005Lo Carbs for the Holidays
First Published on The Piker Press (http://www.pikerpress.com/index.cfm) 2004
Low Carb Dieting has become a banished word at my house these days. I’m tired of reading about it, hearing people extoll its virtues and feeling guilty every time I eat a piece of bread. Even pizza places are offering a pizza guaranteed to have sixty percent fewer carbs. Quite frankly, when I eat pizza I’m *going for* the carbo-load. And what’s pizza without beer? Do I really care about sixty percent fewer carbohydrates when I’m scarfing down a couple of beers? To me, low carbohydrates equates to inadequate cellulite.
It’s November. Holiday time. Everywhere I go these days are paper cut outs of turkeys and reminders that Christmas is just around the corner. The glow of hundreds of tiny Christmas lights already grace the front on my local grocery store. I dream about buttery cookies, pies crammed with fruit, the brown glaze of fat turkeys just out of the oven, mounds of garlicky mashed potatoes. I can barely contain the drool as I stroll through the aisles on my weekly grocery buying trip. Yesterday was my day to shop, and as I wheeled the creaky grocery cart (its wheels grinding and twisting and slowing me down) through the front doors, I noticed a woman sitting at a little table giving out free samples of yogurt. I love free food at grocery stores.
“Would you like to try our new low carb yogurt?”
Low carb yogurt? How many carbs does regular yogurt have anyway? And who counts carbs in yogurt?
“Sure, I’ll try it,” I said to the nice lady who looked at me with her head tipped to one side like a curious squirrel.
She gave me a plastic cup with a dab of yogurt inside, and a tiny little plastic spoon. I scooped the yogurt into my mouth and instantly gagged.
“Wow, that’s terrible.”
The woman looked hurt. “I think it’s pretty good.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s terrible.”
The woman’s mouth pressed into a firm line. She narrowed her eyes. “Most of our customers like it.”
“Really?” I pretended to be impressed.
Behind me a soft voice said, “I’ll try some.”
I looked over my shoulder at a woman with dark hair cut in a pert little bob. Her frail wrists jutted from the sleeves of an oversized sweater. I noted that her neck was as slim and sleek as a swan’s. Petite. I sucked in my stomach and tried not to feel too inferior in my size ten jeans.
The woman accepted the tiny cup and spoon from the yogurt lady and spooned the yogurt into her mouth.
“Ooooooh, yummy,” she gushed.
“See?” The yogurt lady looked at me with satisfaction.
Dismayed, I glanced into the dark haired woman’s cart. Mounds of fresh vegetables, low carb bread, soy milk, and about fifteen pounds of meat were crammed inside.
“Atkins?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Is there anything else?”
I imagined that my size ten jeans tightened around my hips. I smiled graciously and dropped my yogurt cup into the trash.
“Excuse me.” Impulsively I headed for the beer aisle. “Who needs milk anyway,” I muttered while piling two six-packs of dark, carbohydrate rich beer into my cart. By the time I was finished with my shopping, my cart was overflowing with all the goodies of the season. I even splurged and bought a box of Ring Dings.
I’m ready for the holidays and I plan on eating whatever I like. There will be no talk of dieting. Seconds for everyone. Carbohydrates will be celebrated. After all, they *are* organic. Would you like an extra scoop of glucose with the starch? I thought so.