Last Night’s Dinner

Hillary of Chew on That tagged me in a meme last week, the question being “What five foods are you ashamed to love?” I’m a little embarrassed that it has taken me this long to answer, but better late than never, I suppose. Time to reveal my dirty little food secrets to all of you!

1. Packaged ramen noodles. I don’t eat them often, and I don’t keep them around the house because if I did I would probably be hospitalized of an MSG overdose. There’s just something about them that is completely irresistible! My favorite is the Sapporo Ichiban miso flavor variety, but I’ll eat any kind.

2. French fries with stuff. Cheese fries? Yes, please. Chili-cheese fries? Even better. Disco fries? Oh yes. Poutine? Sign me up. Again, I don’t indulge often, but when I do, I’m in heaven.

3. Chipotle. It’s the only fast food I allow myself to eat, but I pretty much have to have it once a week. True story: I usually pre-order online so I can bypass the ridiculous lines at the one near my office, but today their website was down, and I was so desperate for my chicken fajita burrito that I actually went and waited. And it was so worth it.

4. Cream of chicken soup on bread. I blame my maternal grandmother for this one, as well as my Aunt Barbara. It’s just what it sounds like – Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, heated and spooned over slices of soft (usually white) bread, then eaten with a fork. It’s total comfort food that even a kid can prepare. I haven’t had it in ages, but my mouth is watering as I type this… I might need to work on a less, uh, shameful version.

5. Canned soup casseroles. You know those recipes that start with a can of this and a can of that and a pile of cheese and some frozen vegetables? I adore them. I think it’s hard-wired in my Midwestern genes or something - when a bubbling baking dish of unrecognizable vegetables blanketed in a creamy, cheesy sauce is set in front of me, I’m powerless to resist.

As Hillary said, it’s tough to truly be ashamed of any of these dishes – I indulge in them so rarely, and I firmly believe there is room in a healthy diet for all sorts of things. It’s all about variety and moderation, right?

Now for the tagging bit: ann, Terry B, claudia, amy, anita - wanna play?

As expected, the hectic pace I’ve been keeping over the last few weeks at the office in in preparation for our party last weekend caught up with me. Wednesday night I got home from work and was too exhausted to do much of anything; dinner that night was a platter of cured meats and cheeses left over from the party, along with cherry tomatoes, crackers, and a very quaffable red Mike brought home. I was still very stiff and achy when I woke yesterday morning, so I stayed home and spent most of the day in bed with the cats watching a fine selection of food shows on the DVR.

I often worry about dinner on sick days, but yesterday, I didn’t have to - I could smell it cooking all day long. Before he left for work in the morning, Mike seasoned a bone-in pork shoulder and put it in the crock pot, bathing it in a mixture of water, applejack, cider vinegar, chopped fresh figs (left over from the party) and chipotles in adobo. The aroma was heavenly.

By the time we were ready to eat, I was feeling well enough to put together a couple of sides - cannellini beans cooked with tomato and fresh sage, and Tuscan kale sauteed with a bit of garlic, chile flakes and lemon zest. The pork was so tender it was falling apart, so I carefully transferred it to a baking sheet and kept it warm in a 200 degree oven while I reduced the strained cooking liquid. I let it bubble away until it was reduced down to about 1/2 cup, whisked in some cold butter and plated everything up. We opened a lovely Sangiovese which highlighted the flavors of both the pork and the figgy pan sauce, and toasted to a great team effort.

While this dish helped me to use up three party leftovers (3/4 lb. chicken and red pepper sausage, a pint of cherry tomatoes and a pint of fresh mozzarella bocconcini), I wasn’t entirely pleased with the end result. I mixed these ingredients into a bread pudding, made with cubes of ciabatta and my basic custard recipe, but the end result was a little bland. I definitely under-salted the dish, and while the addition of a handful of shredded fresh basil leaves in the custard was nice, it needed a little more oomph – perhaps a stronger herb or some red chile flakes would have done the trick. Still, this wasn’t a bad meal – it was easy and filling, and it helped me clear some space in the fridge for other things.

You may notice a theme this week, as I’m trying to use up some of the leftover odds and ends from our party. The mushroom filling I stuffed into puff pastry rolls uses a mix of dried and fresh mushrooms, and while the dried ones will keep just fine in the cupboard, the fresh ones (shiitake and crimini, in this case) have a far shorter shelf life.

I often use my mushroom filling as a topping for pasta or gnocchi, enriching it with a bit of cream, but I wanted to do something a little lighter. I did a quick search of foodandwine.com and found a recipe for Spaghetti with Shiitakes, Parmesan and Pepper, which really appealed to me, and since I could get it ready in plenty of time for us to watch Heroes, it sounded perfect.

I ended up following the recipe pretty closely, though I did add a generous amount of fresh thyme and a tablespoon of sherry vinegar to the sauce, which I think added a little more complexity to the dish. The earthiness of the mushrooms and the bite of black pepper were delicious together, and the Dolcetto we drank with our meal complemented the flavors really nicely.

The last of the glasses have been washed, the platters have been put away, and our second annual cocktail shindig is behind us. Though we’ve got a fridge full of leftover food and booze and I’m still nursing aching muscles, I think Mike and I both feel that the party was a big success. We had a great time this year, and hopefully our guests did, too.

Like last year, we started planning for the party a few months ahead of time, with a long string of email conversation, notes and charts. We looked back at what we did last year, what worked well and what didn’t, and we tried to make adjustments to our game plan as needed. The weeks leading up to up to the party were particularly hectic because of our work commitments, so the pre-planning we did was extremely helpful, and while I did find myself getting a bit overwhelmed as party day drew closer, in the end I was able to laugh off the things that went wrong – and you know there’s always something.

When planning out my menu, I had a few considerations: I wanted things that people could easily eat while balancing a drink in their other hand, I wanted to have things available for meat eaters and non-meat eaters, I wanted to plan dishes where I could do as much as possible ahead of time, and I didn’t want to rely too heavily on the stovetop or oven (last year, our oven died the morning of the party, and 10 lbs. of rye whiskey marinated chicken wings went uneaten).

We broke down our shopping, purchasing most of the pantry items and other non-perishables a week or so in advance, and bringing home fresh food items on Thursday evening. Mike and I both took Friday off work so we could prep for the party and handle any last minute things that came up, and we had arranged to have a FreshDirect order delivered that day with wine and the remainder of what we needed food-wise. When our order arrived on Friday, an entire box was missing (including all of the wine we ordered) – it just didn’t get loaded onto the truck at the warehouse, and there was no way they could get the missing items to us before Sunday.

If I had not done so much of the food prep already, I would have completely panicked, but as it turned out, most of my dishes were ready to go, and we were able to get the rest of what we needed in the neighborhood. In the end, we had plenty of food – probably too much. In fact, there were a few things I had ready to go that I didn’t even serve (figs with Blu di Capra; my spicy tuna tartare), so I’ll have some fun this week trying to think of creative ways to use up our leftover ingredients. Here’s what we did serve:

Cocktail Shindig 2.0 – The Menu

tamari almonds

white bean and sun-dried tomato dip
Green Goddess dip (I used a mixture of wild baby arugula and fresh basil leaves in place of the watercress)
crudite

spiced olives
Prosciutto San Daniele
Molinari and Sons Toscano Dry Salame

goat cheese bites with herbs and lemon

deviled eggs – plain and with smoked trout

Caprese skewers

wild mushrooms in puff pastry

chicken and red pepper sausage in puff pastry

shredded duck breast in Hoisin barbecue sauce on mini brioche rolls

caramelized onion dip with potato chips

Mike’s working on blogging the drinks end of things, so keep an eye on A Dash of Bitters for his wrap-up.

(More photos are here.)

As you can see, I’ve got a bit of cleaning up to do. Our cocktail gathering yesterday was a big success, and once I’ve caught up and caught my breath, I’ll tell you all about it. For now, here’s Mike’s first post on the drinks side of things.

I’m a little frantic these days. My pre-party panic is in full effect, and I’m beginning to do prep for several party dishes when I get home from work in the evenings in addition to getting dinner on the table. Last night was a pretty heavy prep night, as I worked on about six and a half pounds of duck breasts for the little pulled duck sandwiches I’m serving Saturday. Since the oven was on anyway, I figured I’d take advantage of that and packet cook some scallops.

I’m a big fan of packet cooking. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it makes for minimal cleanup – important considerations when you’re pressed for time and juggling other things. For these scallop packets, I set two squares of foil next to each other on a baking sheet, and mounded a combination of fresh corn, halved heirloom cherry tomatoes and sliced scallions on the center of each. I placed five plump little sea scallops on top of the veggies, seasoned them with kosher salt, and drizzled about a tablespoon of white vermouth and a little olive oil over each before sealing them up. The sealed packets went into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes and when they were done, I placed each one into a shallow bowl to catch any stray juices, opened them up and sprinkled a bit of shredded basil on top. This meal couldn’t have been simpler, and it was bursting with late-summer goodness.

When I was in my twenties and just beginning to experiment with different cuisines, I cooked enough paella that I received an authentic (and pricey) paella pan as a gift from a beau. I still own that pan, but it has been parked on top of the refrigerator for the entire three years Mike and I have lived in our apartment – which should tell you how many paellas I’ve cooked in that time. It’s a dish that I love, but it fell off my radar until recently, when Mark Bittman’s Minimalist Tomato Paella recipe appeared in the Times. I wasn’t the only one seduced by visions of sweet roasted tomatoes, smoky, earthy seasonings, tender rice and that gorgeous crust – in fact, Luisa’s mouthwatering photos practically haunted me. I needed to make this dish.

Since most of our useable kitchen space is covered with platters and such for our party this weekend I didn’t end up dusting off my old paella pan, but our trusty cast iron skillet worked just fine. I followed Bittman’s recipe, using a mixture of white vermouth (1/2 cup) and water (3 cups) for the liquid component, and sprinkling a bit of fresh thyme over the top instead of chopped parsley (it was too dark out by the time I got home to grab parsley from the garden), and let me tell you, this was phenomenal. The depth of flavor in this dish, the textures of the rice and of the roasted tomatoes just floored me, and the fact that it came together so quickly and easily made it that much better. If you’ve been thinking about making this dish and you haven’t yet, do it.

Everybody’s got one – the meal you could put together in your sleep, the dish you fall back on when you’re short on time, energy and inspiration. Between the crazy work schedules Mike and I have had of late, and the fact that I’m spending much of my remaining time putting the finishing touches on (i.e. obsessing and stressing over) plans for our upcoming cocktail party, thinking of what to make for dinner is becoming a bit of a challenge.

I was completely at a loss yesterday as to what to cook, so I pulled out my no-brainer: skinless, boneless chicken breasts simmered in homemade tomato sauce spiked with several fresh basil leaves, topped with melty fresh mozzarella and served with a sautéed green on the side (in this case, broccoli rabe with garlic and chile flakes). It may not be the prettiest meal to look at, but this quick, easy and satisfying weeknight supper totally hit the spot.

A month or so ago, as I flipped through one of the food magazines I regularly read, I came across a recipe for a dish called Frogmore Stew. It was too warm at the time to think about making the dish, but I filed it away as an option for a cooler evening. Summer’s heat is waning now, and corn and tomatoes are at their peak of flavor, so I thought last night was the perfect time to make this dish. The only problem was, I couldn’t find the recipe I had originally looked at. A quick Google search turned up two recipes that sounded similar to what I remembered: Hugh Acheson’s recipe from Food and Wine, and The Lee brothers’ version. I ended up using these two recipes as a jumping-off point and winging the rest according to what we had on hand, and I have to say I was very pleased with the result. My version is in no way authentic low-country cooking, but it’s a darn tasty dish for a crisp early-fall night.

Frogmore Stew

1 tbsp. each butter and olive oil
1 lb. smoked sausage, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces (I used kielbasa from Tamarack Hollow)
2 cups diced red onion
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 cups diced fresh plum tomato
1/2 cup white vermouth
3 cups water
2-3 bay leaves
1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning
1/2 tsp. smoked chipotle powder
1 tbsp. lemon zest
2 tbsp. fresh thyme
8-10 small/medium new potatoes, halved or quartered
2 ears corn, cleaned and cut into 6 rounds
1/2 lb. shrimp, deveined but with shells on
Kosher salt
Chopped fresh parsley and lemon wedges for garnish

Melt butter and oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until browned. Remove and set aside. Add the onion, season with salt and cook a few minutes until soft. Add the garlic and plum tomato, another pinch of salt and cook a few minutes more. Stir in the vermouth and cook until mostly evaporated, then add the water, bay leaves, Old Bay, chipotle powder, lemon zest and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and add the potatoes. Cook uncovered until the potatoes are fork-tender. Add the corn and shrimp, cover, and cook until the shrimp are pink and just cooked through. Taste and adjust seasoning, remove the bay leaves, then ladle the stew into bowls and garnish with parsley and lemon wedges. Serve with plenty of crusty bread to soak up the broth.