Sometimes, "easy" is not the way to go...

While I lazed about the house in my post-New Year's Day food coma, I caught up on some blog reading that I've neglected for the last few months. This October blog post is just one of the reasons I love Michael Ruhlman. (The other reasons have to do with that episode of No Reservations, where he and Bourdain do the Hunter S. Thompson version of Vegas...plus, the man is c-u-t-e cute. And, he can cook, which is like a double-whammy. Looks good, cooks good...probably cleans up after himself in the kitchen.  Lucky, lucky Mrs. Ruhlman.)

Anyway, the gist of his post is that he received a press release of a new cookbook, which is essentially how to take a Michelin-starred chef's cuisine and make it at home...deconstructed, demystified, and declassified. Ruhlman makes some very salient points about not demystifying great good food...and that not everybody is cut out to be a 3-star chef...or even a 1-spatula fry cook at Denny's. (Okay, that last part, about Denny's, is my own snarky take on it.)

Honestly, if we were all Iron Chefs, why should we even bother to go out and eat? Personally, there's some foods that I don't want to make at home...ranging from simple fried chicken to those damned short ribs. And, there's food that I want to eat that is better than what I can cook at home, and I'm happy to go and eat it somewhere else.

I don't want to make fried chicken, or anything else deep fried, at home, because I cannot stand the smell that lingers for days and days. And, I swear up and down that, as Julia Child as my witness, I'm never making short ribs again...they were just too much work! Although, my friend Cheryl tells me that she has a recipe for making them in a crockpot that works...so I might give it another whirl. (Or, I'm moving in with her parents, because her dad makes the most amazing short ribs in a cast iron Dutch oven...)

Don't want to make sushi, either.  I love sushi...have even taken a couple of sushi classes.  Went out and bought a little mat to cover in plastic wrap to help roll and shape the sushi, got a wooden paddle for the rice, got the rice wine vinegar, and the coolest thing--a sushi press--which looks like a little wooden box, but actually allows you to layer and press sushi into

 something that halfway resembles something you might get at a sushi bar...or the grocery store "gourmet sushi" cooler.  (Yeah, yeah, I know it's for beginners, etc., but I thought it made some nice pretty rolls.)

The first time I made sushi at home was pretty much the last time.  After I kept finding tobikko (flying fish eggs) for the next 3 weeks in my tiny apartment kitchen, I decided that some things are best left to the experts.  (But they're pretty, aren't they?)  Plus, the availability and suspectibility of the fish I had available in the local markets was another deciding factor.  

I'm not an amazing cook...I'm not bad at it, and I've managed to pull off some pretty outstanding dishes, but I'm nowhere remotely in the same airspace of people like Ruhlman, or even the flat top cook at Waffle House--you remember how much I stressed out about making an omelet in Pantry Class, don't you?  And, I don't want to be...too much pressure to perform.  Plus, I'd have no excuse to dine out, now would I?  (And, you people would have nothing to read.)

Happy New Year to all, and best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2009.  I think I'm going to have another piece of Red Velvet Cake to celebrate. : )

100

As in 100-calories. One, zero, zero. I've been rather fascinated with the whole "100-calorie pack" phenomena, and amazed at the lengths that companies go to market these things.

Now, I must admit that I really do enjoy the Oreo 100-Calorie packs, because those little chocolate wafers are darn tasty. Plus, I don't have to scrape off the white filling first...not that I'm knocking the white filling, but still...the chocolate is where it's always at.

One of my co-workers had a 100-calorie pack of Pepperidge Farms Chocolate Chessmen, and those were the worst cookies ever...and, there were only 4 (count 'em, 4!) cookies in the pack. You get quite a bit more in the Oreo pack, for sure.

But, if you eat 10 100-calorie packs, even I, with my limited math skills, can figure out that it adds to a bajillion calories. (Calories are always counted in "-illions," don't you know?)

Anyway, the point of this post is the new cookbook (yes, I did need another!) that I found at the Barnes & Noble bargain table. It's called Just 100 Calories, and it describes itself as "Delicious and simple 100 calorie recipes."

(And, it was only $7.99. Whattadeal!)

It's divided up into 5 categories, covering Breakfast/Brunch, Light Lunches/Snacks, Dinners, Desserts, and Drinks, with a lot of the recipes coming in at under 100 calories/serving. (Yeah, a serving...did you think the whole meal was 1oo calories? I was kinda secretly hoping that was the case, too.) Which means what, boys and girls? Yep, you can eat the entire 4-serving recipe and still only be eating approximately 400 calories!! (See, I can does math!)

And, what does 400 calories compare to? A Big Mac is 540. I'll just stop there.

Since I was out of town in California last week, you know I ate well...and my pants were tight...which sucked. As did taking the redeye back on Thursday night/Friday morning. But, I did get to each cheese on the plane, compliments of Delta's little food-for-purchase plan. They have this little cheese and cracker pack, with Brie, Smoked Gouda, and a nice Cheddar, plus crackers, grapes, a big strawberry, a couple of candied pecans. Much better than the processed Lance cheese and cracker pack. And, it was $6, but I would have paid that much for that amount of cheese (by weight) in a gourmet cheese shop, and the quality was good.

Still, I digress...back to the new wonder cookbook, savior of my sanity and the button on my suit pants.

I had been trying to cook from a Weight Watchers shortcuts cookbook, which used a lot of canned and pre-packed products, and I was kind of unsatsified, because most of the meals were essentially 7-10 points a serving, and this was just for the entree. Plus, all the canned beans, etc. were adding more sodium and preservatives than I was happy with consuming.

So, I flipped through this 100-calorie wonder, and noticed that there didn't seem to be a lot of "add 1 can..." Rather, the ingredients lists were heavy on the fresh veggies. So, I'm going to try and work my way through as many of these recipes as I can. The one thing that the book does not give you is the rest of the nutritional breakdown--no fats, carbs, sugars, etc. Just the calories. And, let's face it, because we all know it...to lose weight, you gotta suck it up and cut calories at some point.

Tonight, I tried the first recipe: Beef, Pepper & Mushroom Saute, which was essentially pepper steak. 99 Calories per serving, and we split the entree for a total of 198 calories. Added a small green salad with grape tomatoes, a tablespoon of blue cheese crumbles and 3-4 spritz of that funky Wishbone Salad Spritzer--Red Wine Mist...probably another 100 calories or so for the salad, to have a meal that is less than the Big Mac. And, I felt way better about eating it, too. (We just won't talk about what I had for lunch; suffice it to say that caramel corn was involved.)

And just a quick plug for the Spritzer...it was pretty tasty, but weird...like spritzing hairspray on your salad. We've also got the Raspberry Bliss one to try as well.

Beef, Pepper & Mushroom Saute
4 servings; ~99 calories each

2 sprays olive oil

6 oz beef steak, such as round, with fat/gristle removed); cut into thin strips

2 shallots, cut into thin wedges

1-2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 assorted colored bell peppers (I used red and yellow), seeded and cut into thin strips

6 oz large portobello mushrooms, sliced (I had an 8-oz package of "baby 'bella" that I subbed)

2/3 - 1 cup beef stock (I used 1 cup since I added more mushrooms)

1-2 tsp red currant jelly preserve (optional) (I had some lingonberry stuff from Ikea in the fridge that worked just fine)

1 Tbsp chopped Italian parsley

1. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium-high, and spray with olive oil. (If using an olive oil-based cooking spray, spray it on before you put the pan on the stove, to avoid spraying into the flame if you have gas burners.)

2. Add steak strips and stir fry for 1-2 minutes, or until browned. Remove from skillet and set aside.

3. Add shallots, peppers, and garlic to the skillet and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 more minutes. Add stock and red currant preserves (if using). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 4-5 minutes.

4. Return beef strips to skillet and cook for another 2 minutes or so, until heated through. Sprinkle with parsley and serve, equally divided among 4 bowls.

It was pronounced tasty by The Man, and I have to agree. I've got 2-3 more recipes that I'm going to try over the next couple of days, and I'll let you know how they go. If they are anything like this one, this little cookbook might be worth its rather modest purchase price.

Why do I always pick the complicated one?

It never fails...if there is a recipe in the cookbook that takes for freakin' ever, involves a minimum of 47 steps, and I plan to do it on a weeknight, then all my carefully laid plans on getting it done will go directly out the window.

And, then I'll forget a step or two, so it's going to be a crap shoot on how it turns out. (Beats head on counter)

In case you haven't noticed, I kinda didn't make it through the whole "cook from a cookbook every day this week" phase...so, no bestselling book from a blog for me, a la Julie and Julia, but, I did finally do a recipe out of Rick Bayless' Mexico One Plate at a Time.

(Julie and Julia is pretty funny; I listened to it as an audiobook, read by the author, which I think really worked for it as an experience. IAnd, I was listening to it every morning on my way to that first quarter of culinary school. It makes me consider, every once in an extremely great while, doing something similar (like last week's postings), but then I'm not sure I have the same level of commitment...or commitability, as in to the funny farm, as she did. However, she did get a best seller, which has been optioned for a movie with Meryl Streep playing Julia Child, out of her insanity. Meryl. Streep. This is what all bloggers secretly aspire to...book deal, with the cherry on top movie deal. Hey Hollywood--call meeee!)

Without further ado, I present the craziness that is Rick Bayless and his contemporary Mexican recipe:

Chicken-and-Mushroom-Stuffed Chiles with Tomatoes and Cream

4 1/5 Tbs extra virgin olive oil, or vegetable oil
2 medium white onions, medium dice
Two 28-ounce cans good-quality whole tomatoes in juice, undrained
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp black pepper
2 cups (about 4 oz) sliced stemmed flavorful mushrooms, like shiitakes
1 1/2 cups of whole kernel corn, either fresh or frozen
2 tsp cider vinegar
3 cups coarsely shredded cooked chicken (can used rotisserie or smoked chicken)
1 cup, pack, thinly sliced spinach
or
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt
1 cup chicken or beef broth
8 medium (about 1 1/2 lbs) fresh poblano chiles, not twisted or deeply indented, preferably with long stems
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

(A word of advice: get your mise en place together before you start...trust me on this one.)

Procedure

1. The Sauce and Filling Base. In a medium-large (4-qt) sauce pan, heat 3 Tbs of the olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring regularly, until well browned; about 10 minutes. While onions are cooking, puree the undrained canned tomatoes in a blender or food processor, working in 2 batches if necessary.

When the onions are browned, raise heat to medium-high and add the tomato puree, cinnamon, and pepper. Stir regularly as the mixture boils, reducing to the consistency of thick tomato sauce; about 25 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. The Filling. In a large (10-12 inch) skillet, preferably non-stick, heat the remaining 1 1/2 Tbs of oil over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring often, until the edges turn golden; about 5 minutes.

Stir in half of the tomato mixture, the corn, and vinegar, and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring until the mixture is thick enough to hold its shape. Stir in chicken and spinach or cilantro. Taste and season with salt, usually about 1 teaspoon. (Note from Me: I didn't find that the mixture was soupy at all, and the chicken seemed to absorb the sauce well, so I essentially just heated it up to temperature.)

3. The Tomato Sauce. Stir broth into the remaining tomato mixture. Partially cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes or so, while preparing the chiles. (Note from Me Again: This is the step that I completely forgot. I don't know where my brain was, but it completely skipped over this part. I think I was worried about getting on to the roasting of the chiles part, and I totally overlooked adding the chicken broth (and if I had poured it out earlier, it would have caught my eye, and I would have looked for it in the recipe.) So, it remains to be seen how this is going to turn out...the sauce is probably going to have a bit of a raw taste to it.)

4. Preparing the Chiles. (Yeah, I know...it's only 4 steps so far, but there's soooo many parts!!) Roast chiles directly over gas flame or on a baking sheet 4 inches below a very hot broiler, turning regularly, until skins have blistered and blackened on all sides. Be careful not to char the flesh, only the skin. Remove from heat and cover with a kitchen towel and let stand for 5 minutes. (Note from Me: You can also put them in a plastic bag and let them steam for a few minutes to finish loosening the skin. This charring and removing of the skin is a pain in the ass, but it is very necessary...again, trust me on this one.) Gently rub off the blackened skin, then cut an incision in the side of each one, starting 1/2 inch below the stem and going to within 1/2 inch of the tip. Work your fingers inside and carefully remove the seeds from inside the chiles, being careful not to rip the opening any wider; rinse off any stray bits of skin, and drain cut side down on paper towels. (You are wearing gloves, aren't you? You should so be wearing gloves. Yeah, yeah, poblanos are fairly mild, but go ahead, take your contacts out with those bare hands after you've been working with those chiles...I dare you.)

5. Stuffing and Baking the Chiles. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Fill each chile with about 1/2 cup of the chicken mixture and reform it into its original shape, then lay seam side down in a 13x9-inch baking dish. Check the consistency of the tomato sauce; it should be medium-thick. If it is too thick, stir in a little water. If too thin, simmer briskly until thickened. Taste and season with salt; about 1 teaspoon.

Pour sauce over the chiles, covering them, then drizzle with cream. Bake until sauce is bubbling vigorously, and the cream is beginning to brown; about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve. Serves 4; 2 chiles per person.

(You can make this all in advance; refrigerate sauce, filling, and chiles separately. Stuff chiles, add sauce and cream, then bake just before ready to serve. If everything is cold, bake at 350 degrees F for 30-40 minutes.)

Whew! I'm worn out from just typing up the recipe...and you are thinking I am crazier by the minute as you read the recipe. When I pulled it out of the oven, I tasted the sauce, and it was a little flat...needed a little more saltiness. So, I added cheese and popped it under the broiler. I shredded some Asadero cheese, which is a good melting cheese...think of the white cheese dip at your local favorite Mexican restaurant. (Hey, when all else fails, why not add cheese?)

The overall consensus was the flavors were good, but was it worth the all the time and effort? Not really, and I don't think forgetting the chicken broth and simmering part really hurt the final product. The Man said he thought it would have worked just as well as an enchilada casserole and would have been way less work. I have to concur, and since I have some leftover filling, I'll be experimenting with the enchilada theory for lunch tomorrow...with lots of cheese.

Cheese, cheese, cheese...makes the world go round!

It's Official...It's an Addiction

Last night, I ventured out of the house for a home party...specifically a Southern Living at Home party. Southern Living has very nice decorating stuff in their catalog, but most of it comes at a very nice price as well. There were a couple of things that really caught my eye for kitchen organization, but since I have about 3 square feet of counter space available, I regretfully had to pass. But, I got to hang out with people, eat party food, and have some scintillating conversation about a variety of "girl stuff."

Before I got to the hostess' house, I stopped by Mordors (aka Borders) for a quick time kill and to browse the new paperbacks. Like its competitor, Barnes & Chernobyl (you can figure that one out, can't you?), Borders has racks and shelves of bargain books in the entry way. I usually breeze on by these, because I've never really found anything worthwhile.

But, and you knew there was a but, this night was different. A sign caught my eye--"Take an Additional 50% Off the Sticker Price"--and it was posted over the bargain books. That "take an additional" option is a siren call...very hard to resist. So, I take a look...and what do I find hidden beneath the generic cookbooks with names like Vegetables, Appetizers, Make a Meal out of 3 Cans, are a couple of things that I just have to rescue from their bargain basement hell.

Rocco's 5 Minute Flavor--Rocco DiSpirito is so darned cute that having just the dust jacket to this book is going enliven my collection. Although, there are only a few pictures of Rocco on the inside, darn it. The blurb on the jacket promises "Fabulous meals with 5 ingredients in 5 minutes." We'll see. When giving the book a more thorough look-see, it looks like the "5 minutes" part is actual cooking time and doesn't include prep work, which is a good thing. If it were truly a "5-minute" meal, I would have been better off with the Meal out of 3 Cans cookbook.

Anthony Bourdain has bemoaned Rocco's fate on several occasions, berating him for selling out to the cult of celebrity and shilling for cat food, but he always comes back to the premise that Rocco is actually very talented and can really cook, which makes it all the more disheartening or shall we say, "dispirited?"

(And, upon even closer examination, it does not bode well for this book, when you see the following blurb on the back flap: Grab the Good Life! Get Rocco's recipes and Mama's cooking tips, as well as images and ringtones for your cell phone! Go to www.roccodispirito.com and click on Mobile now!" "Ringtones"? WTH? However, when you go to the site, I saw no Mobile link, which is good, but it doesn't look like the site has really been updated in awhile, which is sad. But, there's a ton of pictures of "His Cuteness," which is very good! Eating is also done with eyes, people! And, remember, I only paid 3 bucks for this book.)

The real gem of the shopping trip is the $3 find of Rick Bayless' Mexico One Plate at a Time. It's a companion to his PBS series of the same name. Bayless is pretty much the old man of Mexican cuisine in America, and seems to be fairly well thought of by his peers. (Although, Bourdain cracks on him for appearing in a Burger King ad.) He has a restaurant in Chicago, the Frontera Grill, and guess what? I have another Rick Bayless cookbook that I've never used! What are the odds of that? It's called Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. The link is for the 20th anniversary edition, and I actually have the 20-year-old version, which I've had for at least 10+ years. (I did mention that whole packrat facet of my personality, didn't I?)

The One Plate at A Time book seems to be more than just a cookbook. Along with the recipes, it has techniques and the results of the test kitchen's trials for the series. If nothing else, it will make for interesting reading.

I think I'll try something from Rick tonight...so, even though I didn't cook last night, I did buy cookbooks, and that's almost as good...isn't it?

(Ha! In looking through the One Plate book, I spotted a recipe for short ribs--Beef Short Ribs with Tomatoes, Roasted Poblanos, and Herbs, which is essentially the same thing I did night before last but with poblanos. If I decide to deal with short ribs again, I'm trying it Rick style!)

We'll be giving Adam or Fred his rib back now

Especially since it seems to take every damn pot and pan, not to mention colander, in the house to make braised short ribs.

They were tasty, but they were rather labor intensive.

Braised Short Ribs
from Comfort Cooking by Marian Barros

4 servings

4 lbs beef short ribs, each 2 inches square or flanken short ribs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 Tbs olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 leek, white part only, trimmed and coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 large sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
2 cups canned plum tomatoes, without juice from can
3/4 cup dry red wine
2 cups good quality beef stock

1. Place rack in lower third of the oven. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

2. Season ribs with salt and pepper. Arrange bone side down in a roasting pan and roast for 20 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Pour off fat from the pan. Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees F.

3. In a skillet, heat oil and saute onion over medium-high heat until it takes on color. Add carrot and leek and continue sauteing over medium heat until vegetables begin to soften.

4. Add garlic, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, and plum tomatoes, crushed in your hand before adding. Cook another couple of minutes over medium heat.

5. Add wine and cook a couple of minutes more over medium-high heat until reduced just a little. Spread the vegetable mixture over the bottom of the roasting pan. Place the ribs on top of the vegetables, bone side up. Add the hot beef stock, cover the pan with foil, and bring to a boil on top of the stove.

6. Loosen foil and place pan in the oven. Braise for about 1 1/2 hours. Ribs are done when the meat is falling off the bone. Test with a knife.

7. Drain liquid from the roasting pan and reserve. Turn the oven to 450 degrees F. Turn the ribs bone side down and return to the oven for about 10 minutes until they are dark brown.

8. Strain the vegetables, remove bay leaf, and press on the vegetables to extract all their flavor into the liquid. Allow to sit so the fat rises to th top. Skim off the fat and serve the ribs in the strained liquid.

About halfway through this "not so 30-minute meal," and since I had the wine already open, I poured myself a healthy slug, because I was going to need it to get through this mess.

I had consulted several cookbooks in my collection for recipes on how to cook these suckers, and most of them talked about "flanken" ribs, which in my mind sounds a lot like "planken," which makes me think of ribs that pirates eat. But, I digress.

Having no clue as to what "flanken" meant, I turned to the trusty Innernets and discover I do not have the flanken version, which looks like this:

Which were so not the ribs I had impulsively snatched out of the meat case on Sunday.

I thought maybe I had the English or Chuck short ribs, which are the next ones in line...

But, no, I had the plate version...you know, the ones this more fat and are therefore less desirable...damn impulse buys!






Try figuring out which way was "bone side down" versus "bone side up" on these puppies. I could have been making oxtails...which are just round instead of square, because...you know...they used to be the tail!!!

And, that step where you crush the plum tomatoes in your hand before you put them in the pan? Yeah, let's just blame it on the wine, shall we? Because no one in their right mind would grab a handful of the canned tomatoes, hold them over the saute pan and squeeze them, would they? By the end of this meal preparation, I looked like a body stand-in on CSI: Cordon Bleu.

I served these with buttered noodles and Wine-Steeped Greens ala Rachael Ray. (Hey, the wine was already opened! And, you gotta give props to a recipe that when you look it up, has the total ingredients of "alcohol, vegetables." What's not to love?)

Wine Steeped Greens

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan
1 clove garlic, cracked from skin
1 1/4 pounds cleaned kale, 1 large bunch, trimmed and chopped
1 cup dry red wine
Salt and pepper
2 teaspoons lemon zest, eyeball it

1. Heat a deep skillet over medium heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan, and garlic.

2. Cook garlic a couple of minutes while you chop kale then remove the clove. (I leave the garlic in...just don't burn it.) Crank heat up a notch them add greens to wilt them down, 2 to 3 minutes of turning is involved here. Add wine, salt, and pepper and reduce heat to simmer.

3. Steep the greens in wine 10 minutes, stir in zest then serve.

Notes: If the greens seem too bitter, I throw in a teaspoon or two of sugar. You can also use Swiss chard instead of kale, and I'm betting mustard or collard greens would be fine, too.

But, props to The Man, when he came in a looked at the mess in the strainer from "extracting all the liquid," and said, "Mirepoix, right?"

My work is done.