potatoes

I have a confession to make. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since our move, a lot of time to spend puttering around in the kitchen, working on photos and putting together meals. I haven’t been working, you see. And by the time I start my new job next Monday, I will have had an entire month off from working, more time off than I have had since I was a teenager.

It drove me crazy, at first, the time off, the vast stretch of hours ahead of me in any given day in which I could choose to do anything or nothing. I took advantage, sure, taking the time to set up our kitchen, going out to explore our new city, hanging out with friends, but no job means no paycheck, and as you can imagine, that has been a bit limiting.

Though I had questioned the wisdom of moving so much food from our Brooklyn freezer and pantry to our new home in Providence, I’m glad I did, as it has made it far easier to prepare interesting and tasty meals without having to shell out a ton of money for fresh ingredients. I’ve also been able to really stretch the things we have bought fresh, using them in two or three different dishes.

These enchiladas were built almost entirely on pantry staples, leftovers, and odds and ends. Diced potatoes, sautéed until golden with lots of red onion, provided the base of the filling, and reconstituted dried mushrooms added an earthy, meaty bite. The sauce was a smoky combination of grape tomatoes, garlic and more onion, roasted until meltingly soft, then pureed in a blender with the last roasted red pepper lingering in a jar in the fridge, ground chipotle and ground cumin.

The tortillas, left over from a couple of earlier meals, had gotten a little stale, but a quick fry in olive oil and a dip in the enchilada sauce softened them up nicely. I crumbled the rest of a chunk of Narragansett Creamery Queso Blanco over the top of the stuffed enchiladas and baked them until the cheese was soft and burnished. They got a squirt of fresh lime juice at the end, as well as a drizzle of thinned crème fraiche, some chopped radish and fresh cilantro.

And then there were the beans – oh, those beans. Rancho Gordo, of course. Vaquero beans, simmered gently with onion and garlic and bay leaf and oregano until soft, seasoned toward the end with salt and cumin, and then mashed and fried with a little fat until super-creamy. I could marry those beans.

Speaking of marriage, as I’ve mentioned before I usually leave the stunt cooking to my husband, but unlike me Mike has been working very hard since we arrived here and hasn’t had much time for it. I think I’ll take advantage of the time I have left before going back to work to have some labor-intensive fun in the kitchen. Time to put all our fabulous counter space to use, right?

Sometimes dinner is more about putting together a few items from the fridge and pantry and less about actual cooking. Last night was one of those times - I had something planned for dinner, but as the morning’s rains moved out, leaving us with a beautiful, warm evening, the meal I originally had in mind seemed too heavy. I needed a Plan B.

In addition to my outline of meals for the week, I keep a running list of ideas for quick pantry dinners in my menu planning notebook. Often this list is nothing more than combinations of ingredients that I think would work well together, and I often turn to the list when I need to come up with dinner on the fly.

We’re big fans of canned and tinned fish of all types, so we’ve always got some in the pantry. I thought of the two tins of Cole’s Petite Rainbow Trout we had on hand, and decided to go with one of the combinations listed in my little red book: trout+potatoes+mustard. I whisked together a couple of tablespoons each of mayo, creme fraiche and Dijon mustard, fresh lemon juice, a minced shallot, salt, pepper and a teaspoon or so of brown mustard seeds to make a tangy and lightly creamy dressing. I added a good handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley for color and an herbal kick, and then gently tossed the potatoes and trout in the dressing until coated. I mounded the salad over a big bed of baby lettuces, added a little more freshly ground pepper, and that was that - dinner in minutes, with a minimum of time, effort or fuss.

In another lifetime, I was all about celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. There were far too many black and tans at the Gaelic League, “shaking my shamrock” with my best girl at the Old Shillelagh, big boiled dinners of corned beef, cabbage, carrots and turnips, but honestly, I’m just not that into it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Irish food, drink and music, but I prefer my celebrations on the quieter side these days.

Still, I decided to cook up something green, a simple potato and leek soup with fresh watercress just wilted in and the whole thing pureed right before serving. It was inspired by the soup on Suzanne Goin’s St. Patrick’s Day menu in Sunday Suppers at Lucques, and I had originally planned to serve it with her “Gentleman’s Relish” toasts but in the end I went simpler and made cheddar and chive toasts instead.

I’m not sure if it was because I’m fighting off the cold that my darling husband is trying to share with me, but this didn’t quite hit the mark. I kept adjusting the seasoning, adding a bit more salt, a splash of wine vinegar, and finally whisking in a blob of sour cream (which, of course, decided to separate), and while the end result was okay, it wasn’t delicious. That being said, I’m having some of the leftover soup for lunch today – hopefully the flavors will have improved overnight.

Yesterday was a doozy. I hope to be back in force next week, but for now, I’ll just tell you briefly what I put together last night. I spotted some whole Spanish mackerel at Wild Edibles a few days ago, and hoped they would still have some available so I could make this, but when I stopped off on my way home last night there was no mackerel left. They did have some gorgeous fresh wild sardines, though, so I grabbed a pound of those instead. I halved a pound of fingerlings lengthwise and tossed them with olive oil, kosher salt, a copious amount of fresh thyme and a tablespoon or so of smoked Spanish paprika, then roasted them on a sheet pan in a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes.

I pulled out the potatoes and placed a layer of sardines on top, seasoning them with salt and drizzling a bit of olive oil on top, then placed them back in the oven (now at 400) for another 20 minutes, gently turning the sardines midway through. When the potatoes and sardines were done, I pulled them out of the oven and plated them on a bed of baby arugula, drizzling a good amount of sherry vinegar over the top. I finished them with a sprinkling of coarsely chopped raw almonds for a bit of crunch, and as a nod to the grilled sardine with romesco I had at La Laiterie in Providence our last trip up (which is where we had that waffle with foie, for those of you who asked).

This was a relatively quick and very easy dinner, the flavors harmonizing beautifully, and the whole meal was elevated by Mike’s wine selection, this 2005 Albert Boxler Chasselas. The light, bright flavor cut through the richness of the sardines and paired really well with the other flavors in the dish.

After the long week we had, I was really feeling the need for some inspiration, so on Saturday morning Mike and I headed into the city to do a food safari. After brunch and a quick stop at Uva to pick up a good bottle of wine for our Valentine’s Day dinner, we went into the city to go to the Greenmarket at Union Square. With Mike working so close I don’t go there as often as I used to, so I was anxious to see what sort of treasures we could find at the winter market.

I was delighted to see Yuno’s Farm there on a one-off winter appearance. They weren’t selling a wide variety of things, but I was immediately drawn to these beautiful young mustard greens with their spiky green and violet leaves (which reminded me of a Disney villainess). I filled a bag and moved on, already beginning to change my plans for our meatless Monday dinner.

By the time we finished our shopping, we had a beautiful selection of root vegetables, grass-fed Angus fillets and pork sausages for later in the week, and those beautiful greens. We headed home with our bounty, ducking in to Essex Market to visit our favorite cheese goddess, and I revamped our meal plan for the week.

Since my recent experiments with roasting beets have been so well received, I decided to roast them again along with some multicolored potatoes and carrots and Silver Queen turnips from Windfall Farm. I tossed my roasted vegetables with a mustard vinaigrette and placed them on a bed of our mustard greens, then topped them off with a poached egg.

I was pleased enough with how these salads came out - they were certainly pretty to look at and the texture of the roasted vegetables and creamy egg worked well together - but I would have liked a little more flavor contrast, perhaps from a bit of sharp or tangy cheese or a punchier vinaigrette. This is definitely a dish we’ll have again.

As I’ve said before, I really believe that you eat with your eyes first, so I like to spend a little time on plating. Our dinner last night wasn’t anything fancy – a combination of beets, fingerlings and purple potatoes tossed with salt, olive oil and Herbes de Provence and then roasted in the oven, a salmon filet seasoned with salt and pepper and seared on the stovetop, my basic mustard vinaigrette and some pretty microgreens – but the presentation (and flavor) garnered a big “WOW” from my husband. It’s nice to know I can still knock his socks off from time to time.

This is all Amy’s fault.

From the moment I laid eyes on this, I knew I had to try this recipe. How could I not? See, my favorite food in the world next to cheese has got to be potatoes in any form, and when I saw those crisp, delicious looking beauties, I developed a craving for fries that just would not go away. My first thought was to make steak frites, but since we’ve been going so heavy on the meat lately, I decided on moules frites as a lighter option.

I followed the recipe for the fries pretty closely, substituting olive oil for canola because we didn’t have any on hand, and dividing the potatoes over two half-sheet pans. One pan (the one with more wear on it) turned out perfectly crisp, beautiful fries and the other… well, not so much. Those fries stuck to the bottom of the pan, to the sides of the pan, to each other, to anything they could stick to. They were pretty mangled and fugly after I finally turned them all, but I pressed on.

I ended up leaving the fries in the oven for an extra 10 minutes (for a total cooking time of one hour), and when I pulled them out, I had one tray of perfect specimens, and a second tray of perfectly cooked fries that were not going to win any beauty contests, but were just as tasty as their more attractive brethren.

The garlicky topping, I must say, is genius. If you make these fries, do not skip that step. And if you like fries, do try this recipe, because even though my go at them wasn’t all smooth sailing, they were worth the frustration, and I definitely plan to make them again and again.

I wish I could say that I was responsible for the contents of this beautiful plate, but the only thing I did was take pictures and dig in.

Not only did my awesome husband bring home a delightful surprise for me last night, but he didn’t let me lift a finger in the kitchen. He cooked up these gorgeous Flying Pigs chops with pan gravy, smashed sour cream-spiked potatoes, and garlicky Red Russian kale while I relaxed on the sofa with a cocktail and we chatted about our day. It was heavenly.

Have I mentioned lately what a lucky girl I am?

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut as far as our meatless dinners go. It’s so easy to fall back on pastas or my beloved risottos, and while soups are wonderful I just wanted something different yesterday. We had a bunch of kale in the crisper drawer that I wanted to use up, and a can of black eyed peas in the cupboard that I’ve had my eye on for a while, but I still wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to put the two together.

Inspiration came (as it often does) from the pages of the current issue of Diner Journal. As I flipped through, I discovered a recipe for a kale and black eyed pea dish topped with a poached egg, and while I didn’t end up using that specific recipe, it was nice to know that I was on the right track as far as the combination of ingredients goes.

I drained and rinsed my peas, washed and chopped my kale into about 1 inch pieces, and set them both aside. I warmed some olive oil in a pan and added half a red onion, chopped, and a bit of salt. I had a few small potatoes left from last week, so I cut them into small cubes and added them to the pan to brown, seasoning them with salt and pepper. Next came three fat garlic cloves, peeled, smashed and roughly chopped, which I sautéed until fragrant. I added a splash of white vermouth next, along with a teaspoon or so of smoked paprika and a splash of sherry vinegar, and then added the black eyed peas and kale. The whole thing got another pinch of salt and a good stir, then I lidded the pan up and let it cook until the kale wilted, about 15-20 minutes.

When the kale and pea mixture was nearly finished cooking I poached my eggs, cracking each one into a ladle before lowering them into simmering water spiked with a bit of vinegar. I spooned my veggies into shallow bowls, placed an egg on top, and drizzled a little olive oil over them. They got a final topping of freshly ground black pepper, and I nestled a couple of little garlicky toasts into the bowls before serving.

Once again, I ended up with a dish that was a bit lacking in the beauty department, but which had loads of flavor. It was hearty and satisfying, the smoky paprika lending depth, that hit of vinegar brightening the earthy veggies, and the golden yolk of the poached egg enrobing it all in richness