Dinner: Sausage and Spinach White Bean Soup

This is an original creation that worked out pretty well for a quick weeknight meal.  I know dried beans taste way better and are a lot cheaper bla bla bla, but they also require something in exceedingly short supply for a lot of people: planning.  You want to make it with dried beans, I'm not going to stop you.  For the rest of us, here goes (sorry, no pictures):

2 fresh bratwurst

1 medium onion 

1 box (9 oz) frozen chopped spinach

2 cans (15 oz) navy or great northern beans

1/2 tsp caraway seed

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 tsp lemon juice (adjust to taste)

salt to taste

Squeeze the sausage out of their casings into a medium saucepan over low heat, breaking it up as it starts to brown.  Chop the onion.  Add to saucepan and increase to medium heat, continuing to break up sausage as it cooks until onions are translucent and sausage is well browned.  If you've had the foresight to thaw the spinach, add it to the saucepan now.  If you haven't, no worries, just put it in the pan frozen, cover it, turn the heat down low, and wait a few minutes until your spinach block thaws.  Add the beans and enough water or stock to bring it to the consistency you prefer.  Heat to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so.  Add lemon juice and salt to taste.  Enjoy.

30 minutes or so.  Serves 3-4 as a meal, more as a soup course.

Dinner: Fasinjoon

I finally got a chance to try out the recipe for fasinjoon that I got off one of my Iraqi teachers three years ago.

It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, so I figured I'd share the recipe again, including my updates of what I changed. It's truly one of the world's great sauces. It would pair just as well with other meats, particularly lamb, but here's how I made it with chicken:

2+ lbs. chicken thighs
1 large onion
1/2 bottle (2 dl) pomegranate molasses (available at Middle Eastern groceries or online)
8 oz. walnut pieces
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt
Parsley and lemon to garnish

Chop the onion and begin sautéing in a deep frying pan with a little vegetable oil. Meanwhile, rinse the chicken thighs and skin. Toss skins into the pan to sauté with the onions so they release their chickeny deliciousness. Once the onions begin to caramelize, add the chicken thighs and enough water just to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Remove chicken skins. With a blender or food processor, grind the walnuts finely. Add walnut meal and pomegranate molasses to the pan, stir to combine. Cover and continue simmering for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cinnamon, pepper and salt when 10 minutes remain, uncover as needed to allow sauce to thicken to desired consistency. Serve over rice (basmati is most appropriate, but any will do). Garnish with parsley and lemon slice (I didn't, and the dish suffers visually, as you can see above).

Enjoy!

Recipe Plug: Smitten Kitchen's Cherry Brown Butter Bars

This was too good not to plug. And I totally dropped the ball on getting a picture. I made it with about half blackberries and half the strawberry/blueberry mix left over from Independence Day Pancakes. I added a touch more sugar to compensate for the tartness of the blackberries and a splash of almond extract, well, because it was there. Next time, I'll do all blackberries, if only for the joy of saying "brown butter blackberry bars" three times fast.

Brown butter is amazing. You'll recognize it immediately as the aroma of baking shortbread or pie crust, but in dangerously concentrated form. Add fresh summer fruit, and the result is... well, you'll just have to make it yourself. It's assertive, though, so I don't think I'd go with anything less bold than cherries. Apples or pears would probably be overwhelmed. Currants and gooseberries would be delicious, and very Continental if you're into that.

Gustatory Pornography

For me, a gourmand hopelessly stuck in communal housing without a kitchen, food blogs are to cooking as pornography is to procreation. And the Pioneer Woman and Bakerella are my Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt. Today, Bakerella's making pancakes:


See what I mean?

A Great American Story

David Tran is the man behind my favorite stand-by hot sauce, Sriracha, and his creation is profiled in the NYT Dining section.

"I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese. After I came to America, after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’"

Success is sweet. Or spicy, as the case may be.

Saturday Dinner: Pasta Two Ways. And Then Pie.

Yeah yeah yeah, it's Tuesday night. Sue me. Djyah want your recipes or no? Yeah, in the plural. Moving on.

So Saturday night my congenital indecisiveness got the best of me, leading me to make a ridiculous amount of pasta. See, the idea of making pasta alla puttanesca had gotten lodged in my brain, (probably triggered by an unwitting reference to A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, a charming book which features the puttanesca in a subplot). Sadly, several of our dinner guests expressed an aversion to olives, which feature prominently and irreplaceably in the puttanesca. I suppose I could have just chosen a different dish. One of our guests, however, had expressed a love of olives, and this guest, for multitudinous reasons, particularly deserved a very special meal. In conjuction with my own strange compulsion to attempt the puttanesca, this left the matter completely out of my hands. Two pastas it would simply have to be.

Pasta alla Puttanesca: (heavily adapted from Wikipedia, which will reveal the meaning of this dish's slightly scandalous title) :


olive oil
3 cloves garlic
6 anchovy fillets
1 tiny jar (around 1/4 cup?) capers, rinsed
1/2 cup good green olives (like, from the deli, not a can)
1/2 cup Kalamata olives
2 15oz. cans diced stewed tomatoes

Heat some oil. Sautee the garlic and anchovies until the little fishies dissolve into stinky nothingness. Toss in the capers and olives. Since I really don't know what the heat is accomplishing at this point, throw in the tomatoes, too. Heat it all until it's hot. (This isn't a particularly tricky dish). Oh, and hopefully you threw in some entertainingly-shaped pasta before you started with the sauce. Otherwise you'll be eating this on bread, which is also seriously delicious, I promise.

Sidenote: I never understood the whole anchovy thing until this dish. And... wow. It's seriously just cheating. If you didn't already know what they were, you'd never know they were there. You'd just wonder "huh, it tastes like someone is kicking me in the mouth with a boot made of pure deliciousness".

Pasta Arrabiata (this one's all me)


1 lb hot Italian sausage
1 green pepper, halved and sliced into 1/4" strips
1 sweet onion, halved and sliced in 1/4" strips
4 cloves garlic, brutalized
2 15oz. cans diced stewed tomatoes
1 tsp. red pepper flake
grated parmesan to impress the ladies

Brown the sausage. Chop up your pepper and onions while that's happening. That whole 1/4" thing? Yeah, do whatever you want with that. It's seriously not going to matter. Short of tossing the pepper and onion into the pan entire, you're not likely to mess this step up. Set the sausage aside when it's cooked through, leaving as much delicious sausage grease in the pan as possible. Sautee your onions and pepper in the delicious sausage grease. And by sautee, I expect to see some browning on those veggies. Feel free to burn 'em a bit, if need be. We're looking for Torquemada here. Good. Now toss in the garlic. Toss it all around for just a minute or so and add the tomatoes and red pepper. I actually didn't have red pepper flake on hand, but powdered cayenne worked pretty well, too. It's all a matter of taste, people. Let that heat up and simmer for just a few minutes and you're ready to serve. Again, assuming you started a pot of pasta about 20 minutes ago. Yeah, I'm not going to get nominated to write any cookbooks anytime soon. And throw some grated parmesan on top. We're all about gilding the lily around here.

And after all of that, our friend A. made pie. This post really belongs in the "Are Ya Serious?" category. Yeah, she's serious. How serious? This serious:

Yeah. Life's not all bad 'round here. 'Specially not on Saturday nights.

Talk Amongst Yourselves, I'll Give You A Topic: Funistrada

What amazes me most about the strange story of funistrada, the only food known solely for the fact that it doesn't actually exist, is that nobody has yet created a dish to fit the name.  I mean, we should be able to pull this off, right?  The -strada makes me think "strata" as in layers.  How about an Italianate vision of moussaka, layers of winter squash and panchetta baked in a casserole under a creamy blanket of bechamel?  Game on, folks, what does funistrada sound like to you?

Saturday Dinner: Chicken Groundnut Stew

One of my only frustrations with my living situation here in the barracks is that we have kitchen available. Our rooms have a fridge and microwave, but there's no range or oven available anywhere. I have a (technically contraband) hot plate and toaster oven, but there's only so much you're willing to do with one burner and no ventilation, especially when you're cooking in your bedroom. It's also a huge event to get everything out of the boxes I keep it hidden in, cook, clean up, and pack it back up again. Long story short, I don't cook during the week, which is why I'm really glad we've gotten into a routine of holding Saturday evening dinner parties at a buddy's house. While I'm hardly one to start competing with all the fantastic food blogs available, I figured it'd be fun to start sharing what goes through my head, culinarily speaking. Last night our coterie feasted on a sack full of extremely ill-tempered blue crabs, courtesy of our host, and I made up a big ole' pot of chicken groundnut stew. Enjoy.

Chicken Groundnut Stew (adapted from Epicurious)

2 lbs chicken (recipe calls for a whole chicken in pieces, I just used 2 packages of drumsticks for ease of eating out of the stew)
1 qt chicken stock
1 15 oz can diced stewed tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 large sweet onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 c natural creamy peanut butter (or Skippy. I doubt anyone'll notice)
1 1/2 tsp African cayenne (or your favorite hot stuff)
2 sweet potatoes
1 lb bag frozen cut okra

Salt the chicken and let stand for a few minutes to draw off surface moisture. Set a skillet heating. Pour your stock, tomatoes, and tomato paste into a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat to start heating up. Pat chicken dry and brown off in hot skillet with a bit of oil. No need to be fancy, just get some nice color on the skin. (Or just forget this step and drop the chicken into your stewpot as is; this dish is hardly going to be lacking in depth of flavor). Add chicken to stewpot with stock and tomatoes. When stew comes to a boil, turn it down to a simmer and make note of the time. While stew simmers, rough-chop the onion and toss in skillet. Cook on medium-high heat until onion is translucent and beginning to brown on edges. Turn down heat and allow onions to continue to caramelize while you make use of your favorite technique to turn garlic cloves into smashed garlic paste. Toss garlic in with onions for just a few minutes to heat up, and add to stewpot. Now's as good a time as any to add the cayenne and peanut butter. When the stew's been simmering a good 30 minutes or so, peel and chunk the sweet potatoes and add to stew. Toss in the frozen okra, and bring the whole thing back to simmering until the sweet potatoes are fork-tender but not falling apart, about 12 minutes. Salt to taste. Serve in bowls or stew plates, over rice or by itself.

You'll understand quickly why I like using just the drumsticks in this stew, because then you can just pick them up out of the stew with your fingers. I suppose there's more mannerly ways to eat this, but that just strikes me as way too much work.

Next time I'll try to remember to take a picture or three, but I won't be emulating the Pioneer Woman anytime soon.

Journalistic Fear-Mongering is Lost on Me

All I got out of this article was a serious craving for doner kebab.

Among the kebabs sampled - without salad or sauces - the average doner contained 98% of an adult's recommended daily salt and 148% of their daily saturated fat allowance... The worst doners inspectors came across contained 1,990 calories before salad and sauces - over 95% of a woman's recommended daily calories, 346% of a woman's saturated fat intake and 277% of an adult's daily salt intake.

Mmmmmmm... kebab.

I See No Downside

There are something like 5 million feral hogs running rampant in the United States. They are a nuisance and an environmental threat. All I'm getting out of that is that nobody will defend their precious animal rights when we process them into 50,000 tons of sweet delicious bacon (figuring an average of 20 lbs per farm-raised pig, which is probably conservative when applied to wild hogs). So am I right or am I right?

Food Miles, Schmood Miles

There are a lot of reasons to eat locally; preventing global warming just isn't one of them. The "Food Miles" concept of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding produce shipped long distances is a classic example of feel-good environmentalism lacking empirical rigor. As Reason Magazine explains, it makes the most environmental sense to grow food in exactly the same places where it makes the most economic sense. Any given crop has preferences in soil and climate, livestock have preferences in climate and feed, so land and agrochemical use are minimized by growing crops and raising animals in the places most suited to their growth. Then there's the basic logistical issue:

It transpires that half the food-vehicle miles associated with British food are travelled by cars driving to and from the shops. Each trip is short, but there are millions of them every day. Another surprising finding was that a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.

This study was in compact, crowded Britain. The situation can only be worse in spacious America. This excerpt uses the phrase food-vehicle miles. Maybe we can come up with a better term than that, but it hinges on thinking not about total miles traveled, but on miles traveled per item of produce in a given shipment. Think of it this way: you buy a local tomato at the trendy farmers' market instead of one that's been shipped from California, thus reducing "food miles". What you fail to account for is "food-vehicle miles": the local tomato might have ridden thirty miles in the back of a pickup with maybe 50 other tomatoes. The California tomato was shipped cross-country, true, but in a semi-load of millions. The amount of fuel burned per tomato to get it from the field to your house ends up being far less for the mass-market tomato, particularly if you drive further to the farmers' market than the grocery store.

This is all such a great example of the sort of environmentalism that cares more about labels and trends than about actually accomplishing anything. Some of the political motivations are suspect as well; much of the local-food movement has an ugly strain of protectionism to it. Indeed, Kenya has been forced to defend her cut-flower industry from the "food miles" concept, with an ad campaign point out that Kenyan flowers are "Grown Under The Sun" instead of in heated greenhouses and are thus "greener" than British or Dutch cut-flowers. Again, we're back to growing things where they grow best. Crazy talk, I know.

All this is most certainly not to suggest that I'm against buying locally. I think there's a great food security argument to a more distributed agricultural production. There may be some nutritional benefits (though studies are inconclusive). For me, there is without a doubt a mental health benefit; it just feels right to be eating food grown in the community. It supports a more localized economy, a sense of civil interdependence, and a healthier, more traditional lifestyle. So in the end I'm all for local produce, or best of all, food you grow yourself. Just don't try to convince me I'm saving the world by buying it.

Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

Matthew Yglesias blogs about turkey over at the Internet Food Association, arguing (with considerably validity) that turkey just isn't that great of a meat, period, regardless of all the foodies trying to figure out ways to make it better. He argues that the reason for this is that the breeding of commercial turkeys has focused on exactly one factor: size. I buy that this might be true, but I'm not willing to accept his argument that the best response is just to give up on turkey and serve something else for Thanksgiving. There must be sources of naturally-raised turkeys from traditional breeds. I'd like to give one a try before I give up on turkey entirely.

Oh yeah, and I'm thankful for stuff. But I don't think I really need an allotted day to acknowledge that.

UPDATE 27NOV08 2352: Yepp, there are heritage turkeys out there. No word on how pricey, but they do exist.

Why I Love Wikipedia

As a young child, a favorite pastime was paging through our family's sets of encyclopedias, reading about whatever article caught my interest. I am confident this early exposure to the broadest possible spectrum of random knowledge is what made me such a voracious addict of, well, random knowledge. So naturally I love Wikipedia, because it's so easy to stumble across something you've never heard of. Ten minutes ago, I never knew there existed such a vegetable as the mangelwurzel. Say it with me, "mangelwurzel". Isn't it glorious?

Food Meme

What a great way to finish off my block leave: a food meme! Shane pointed me to this list of the Omnivore's Hundred, or as Shane puts it, 100 Things to Eat Before You Die, originally from the Very Good Taste blog. Items I've had in the past are in bold, my commentary is in italics, and items I've had in the last two weeks of leave are in red, just for kicks.

1. Venison (though only in the form of garlicked summer sausage, which could be made from fetid dingo's kidneys and nobody would know the difference).
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue (though the last time I had it, I had so much and was in such a bad mood, I'm not sure I ever want it again).
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear (yeah, remember field exercises in Texas? I hate to get my revenge on the buggers somehow).
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (though seriously, I think only once. I'm a quarter-pounder sort of guy).
56. Spaetzle (best. staple. starch. ever).
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores (do they count if I never have to patience to actually roast the marshmallow?).
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (only if you count using Kaopectate, and I don't).
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (heck yeah county fair!).
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (wait, just hare? or does rabbit count?).
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

52. Just over halfway there.

Cake Wrecks

A new fun blog: Cake Wrecks. A gallery, with commentary, of some truly appalling cakes (and a few totally awesome ones). My favorite is titled I'll Take My Chances. That or the cake-entombed baby. Yeah, you read that right.

The Horror!

It is truly astounding what people will eat. Horrifying. Revolting. And I'm fully aware that there are probably people who would be equally disturbed by certain American "delicacies". But really. Check out Cracked's "6 Most Terrifying Foods", if you have the stomach and don't mind the profanity.

Care Package

Today was a significant milestone in my Army career: I picked up my first care package while deployed. And what a care package it was! It contained a few of the little items I had asked for, such as a cheap watch and some keychain LEDs. There was also a nice selection of Easter candy (which I would of course never even begin to think of touching before Easter). There were also some cookies of course, which I will share with my coworkers tomorrow. My mother is still committed to using baked goods to buy me friends. Digging through all these things, I also came across a mysterious block wrapped in aluminum foil inside a ziploc bag. I assumed it was brownies, stacked and wrapped together, and left it for last. When I picked it up, however, I immediately knew it was too heavy, too dense to be simple brownies. Wait, could it be? No... I slowly opened the bag and sniffed, yet refused to believe my nose when it corroborated my growing suspicion. No way, there couldn't be any left, could there? Excitement mounting, my hands nearly shaking, I unwrapped the foil to reveal -- joy of joys! -- an entire half-loaf of Christmas fruitcake! For those of you who don't understand our family's love for this singular, maligned confection, I only wish you might have the chance someday to sample our fruitcake, and forget everything you'd even known or been lead to believe about it. That said, I'm now in a bit of a quandary. How exactly do I go about eating it? I'm not sharing, that's for certain. But even so, I have a distinctly finite amount of fruitcake to enjoy. My instinct is to savor it, eating only a tiny portion every few days, to make it last as long as possible. The heterogeneous nature of the fruitcake, however, means that a sufficiently large bite must be taken to ensure the complete fruitcake experience, so a balance of concerns is in order. This is the point where you accuse me of overthinking this to a nearly ludicrous degree. And I can only shake my head sadly, because you just do not understand. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Fasinjoon

I've been carrying around this recipe for months. I got it from one of my Iraqi teachers all the way back in Texas, but recipes don't exactly fit all that neatly into my organizational scheme, so it's just sort of been floating from folder to folder. So, here I post it for posterity. Also so you can make it and marvel at the deliciousness of Iraqi/Persian cuisine.

Fasinjoon:

2+ lbs. chicken pieces
1 large onion
1/2 bottle (2 dl) Dibis Rumman
(pomegranate molasses, available at Middle Eastern groceries or online)
1 lb crushed walnuts
2 tsp black pepper
4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar

Boil chicken with salt and onions until done in enough water to cover. Add all other ingredients to broth and simmer for at least 1/2 hour. Serve over rice. Refrigerates/freezes well.

For American palates, it might be best to start with less of the pepper and sugar, then adjust to taste. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Fortress

At some point in the middle of December, a friend of mine casually mentioned that she was planning to build a gingerbread fortress and invited me to help out. Well, it never worked out for me to help her out with her fortress, but I sat down a few days before Christmas to build one myself. About an hour and a half into cutting out templates, I began to suspect that my job in the Army probably isn't using quite making use enough of my creative energies. Once I get settled into a schedule, I'm really going to have to take up a hobby or three. In any case, I spent most of a day designing, mixing, cutting and baking the gingerbread pieces, then enlisted the help of the Elephant's Child in assembly and decoration. Between the two of us, well, you can see the results.

I present, Gingerbread Fortress 2007:

This is in my parents' church's kitchen. My mom doesn't have orange countertops.

The attackers seem to have the upper hand. That battering ram is serious business, and nobody expected the siege towers.


Or the grappling hooks.

It's been a long, tough siege, and the infirmary is full. Grandma thought it was the firing squad. If it were the firing squad, they'd have frosting blindfolds, not frosting bandages. Don't think I didn't think about it.


Perhaps a thorough interrogation of the captives ("Not my gumdrop buttons!") may reveal a way out of this mess.


The situation is getting desperate. Will the walls hold?

Mmmmm...

My mom's fridge now contains no less than four different types of cookie dough waiting to be baked. And I've got a drawerfull of spoons.