I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
I started to tell you about the book Ad Hoc at Home the other day. Since this is a book about family meals, it’s organized according to how planning meals at home supposedly happens. The chapters for main courses of meat and fish come first assuming those are chosen first, and they're followed by soups, salads, vegetables and side dishes, breads, and desserts which are picked to go with a main course. That makes sense. Although, I have been known to plan meals around a vegetable or salad I have in mind. This particular meal did involve barbecued chicken, but my real plan was to put together a menu that would include fresh, local corn. The creamed corn recipe in the book had stuck in my head, and I had to have it. Creamed corn may not ordinarily require a recipe, but in this case, it led me to adding cayenne and lime zest, and so I was happy to follow it. Then, the asparagus coins caught my eye. Rather than leaving the asparagus in spears, they were cut into nice, little rounds and cooked with chive oil and parsley water. Yes, it was just a tad fussy for a simple, home-cooked side dish, but the flavor was fantastic.
First, for creamed corn, Keller offers a handy tip for removing silks from the cut kernels. Move your hand through the kernels, round and round, and the silks will stick to your hand. Rinse your hand and repeat as needed. With kernels free of all silks, the corn was cooked in a large saute pan with melted butter, lime juice, and salt over low heat. Once the liquid evaporated, cream, cayenne, and lime zest were added. When the corn had absorbed most of the cream, chopped chives were added, and it was done.
To make the asparagus dish, chive oil and parsley water needed to be made in advance. To make chive oil, chopped chives were placed in a sieve under hot running tap water to remove any chlorophyll taste. The chives were drained and dried and pureed with canola oil. That mixture was refrigerated for 24 hours and then poured through cheesecloth to become perfectly smooth. Parsley water was made with leaves and tender stems that were wilted in a pan with a teaspoon of oil and a little honey. That mixture was then transferred to a bowl with ice cold water to stop the cooking. All of that was then pureed and strained. The reason for the parsley water is that it helps in retaining the flavor of asparagus. The chemical in asparagus that gives it its taste is water-soluble, so cooking in plain water causes some of that flavor to disappear. With those items prepped, it was time to address the asparagus. It was suggested that the spears be cut on a mandoline for perfectly equal-sized coins. I opted to quickly chop with a knife and accepted that mine were close enough to being equal in size. So, the almost perfect asparagus coins and tips were placed in a saute pan with chive oil and salt. As soon as the edges of the coins began to cook, parsley water was added, and it was left for a brief couple of minutes until just tender.
I said the parsley water and chive oil were fussy, but they really weren’t difficult to prepare. In fact, I finished them both in about 20 minutes and that included washing dishes. I would need to do a side by side comparison with asparagus cooked in plain water to know if the parsley water were truly effective in preserving asparagus flavor. But, I can say that the taste was excellent and very much of asparagus with a mild side note of chives. And, the creamed corn was ridiculously good. Fresh corn and cream can do no wrong, but add a little lime and cayenne, and it becomes even better. These were simple, home-cooked side dishes that were taken to another level, and that’s the point of Ad Hoc at Home.
I had the pleasure of meeting Deborah Madison at a book signing held at Boggy Creek Farm a few weeks ago. The signing was for her new book Seasonal Fruit Desserts from Orchard, Farm, and Market which I’m looking forward to using from one season to the next. For the last year, I’ve been enjoying cooking from her book Local Flavors, and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is a classic of hers I reference often. Deborah was a student for eighteen years at the San Francisco Zen Center where she was head cook, guest cook, and private cook at different times. She also cooked at Chez Panisse before opening Greens restaurant which was a leader in offering farm-driven menus. Her many award-winning books inspire a way of eating that connects us to our food sources. Deborah is on the board of the Seed Savers Exchange, has been involved with Slow Food for over ten years, is the co-director of the Monte del Sol Edible Kitchen Garden in Sante Fe, New Mexico, and you can find her on Culinate. I asked Deborah, what are you reading?
"Oak" is a small but pretty, pithy book that in fact does frame civilization in terms of the habitat of the oak tree and the fact that it didn't adapt to a specialized niche.
To me both of these books are completely about food. Soil is essential, and it helps to understand it. "Oak" is about culture, but much of the oak culture is in fact about food, about gathering acorns, claiming trees and branches, harvesting, sharing, processing, cooking. But it's bigger than acorns. And food is bigger than recipes; it's about how we arrange our lives with others, and with nature, too.
Thank you for participating, Deborah! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.
The kind of food that we eat at home with our families is what Ad Hoc at Home is all about. The book is dedicated to comfort food from American family traditions and other cultures as well, and it serves as a reminder to sit down and enjoy time spent around the dinner table. That being said, the book is also about cooking with a certain level of precision and paying close attention to technique for the best possible results. This is a Thomas Keller book after all. His secret equation is great product plus great execution equals great cooking, and he provides the tips to achieve it. The recipes here are far simpler than what you’ll find in the French Laundry Cookbook, but there’s still a lot of care taken and some intentional fussiness here and there. I was immediately inspired to put together the kind of family meal that this book encourages. On page two, Keller describes a meal he prepared for his father which included barbecued chicken. Believe it or not, in the recipe it states, “try to find a sauce with some integrity, preferably from a small producer.” Yes, that was a suggestion to use a purchased barbecue sauce. I couldn’t do it. For a Thomas Keller meal, I had to make my own sauce. I’ll describe the side dishes, which were from the book, in another post, but what I’m showing today is the sauce I made for the grilled chicken. I had saved this recipe from the June 2009 issue of Living magazine. In that issue, there was a classic barbeque sauce recipe followed by three variations. I chose to use the smoky chile and coffee option. I hope Keller would approve.
To start, the classic sauce recipe was prepared which involved sauteing chopped onions and garlic. Salt, pepper, ancho chile powder, ground coriander, cumin, molasses, and brown sugar were added next. After that simmered for a bit, canned crushed tomatoes and cider vinegar were added, and that mixture was left to slowly simmer for about three hours. It’s a long simmer time, but it doesn’t require much attention other than an occasional stir. During the last half an hour, I placed chopped, seeded dried chiles in a bowl with hot espresso to rehydrate them. When the sauce was nicely thickened, half of it was pureed with the chiles and espresso. I left the other half as it was and placed it in the freezer. That way, I can try one of the other variations at a later date, and peach and bourbon, I’m looking at you. As Keller advised in the book, I bought a whole chicken and cut it into pieces and that seems to get easier every time I do it. The chicken was seasoned and left in the refrigerator for a few hours. Then, the legs and thighs were placed on the grill first followed by the breasts and wings a few minutes later. When all of the pieces were cooked through, the sauce was added and it cooked another couple of minutes.
We did a quick taste test of the classic sauce versus the smoky chile and coffee sauce. The classic was sweet and flavorful, and it was a perfectly good barbecue sauce. The smoky chile and coffee, however, had layers of earthy flavor that balanced the sweetness, and there was a little spicy heat for good measure. It was a thick, clinging kind of sauce which was great for chicken. The barbecued chicken and vegetable side dishes made up the kind of meal that makes you slow down for a bit. We enjoyed some simple but memorable food, and we’ll be doing more of that as I continue to use the book.
I don’t know where or when these cookie bars originated. I do know that I started seeing them everywhere over the last year. There are sugar cookies bars on My Baking Addiction, The Repressed Pastry Chef, Completely Delicious, and Love and Olive Oil and many more. The earliest post I’ve found is from Taste Buds. If you know the origin of them, let me know. I have a thing for sugar cookies. They are the best cookie ever, but they are also labor-intensive. The allure of the sugar cookie bar is that the dough is baked in one sheet, it’s frosted all at once, and then the sheet is cut into pieces. This is a very streamlined process for a sugar cookie. When I reached my breaking point and mentioned that I simply had to try baking these myself, my sister demanded that I do so right away and bring them with me when I visited last weekend. My arm was twisted, I pulled the butter from the refrigerator, and got to work.
The recipe for these is always the same. A cup of room temperature butter is creamed with two cups of granulated sugar. Four eggs are added, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Two teaspoons of vanilla are added. Meanwhile, five cups of all-purpose flour are sifted with one teaspoon of salt and one half teaspoon of baking soda. The dry ingredients are slowly added to the butter mixture and are mixed until just combined. The oven should be pre-heated to 375 degrees F. The dough is spread onto a thirteen inch by eighteen inch sheet pan and patted out to the edges evenly. It’s baked for twenty to twenty-five minutes and then allowed to cool. For the frosting, some recipes suggest a mix of butter and shortening, but I used all butter. So, one cup of room temperature butter was mixed with one teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt. Four cups of confectioners’ sugar are added slowly and mixed until combined. For liquid, you can add five tablespoons of milk, but I used a couple of tablespoons of milk and couple of pomegranate juice. I was hoping for a pale pink hue, but it really didn’t color the frosting much at all. After applying the frosting, I do think sprinkles are absolutely necessary here. Then, cut and serve.
In my case, I cut, packed the bars into an airtight container, shoved that into my carry-on bag, and hoped the bars wouldn’t end up too smooshed after being transported. The frosting did get a little flattened by the time I reached my destination, but they weren't ruined. The texture of the cookies was just right. They weren’t too firm or too crumbly, and the frosting kept them from becoming dry. I still have my favorite sugar cookie of all time that can never be replaced, but these are very, very good cookie bars. I know I’ll be baking these again and again. And, who can resist sprinkles?
You know how food tastes better when you’re on vacation? I’ve had a lingering memory of a vacation meal for years now. It wasn’t even anything special or planned in advance or exotic. It was a meal at a restaurant we picked because it was the first place we found and we were hungry. I ordered a simple salmon dish served with spinach, and it was flavored with ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil. That combination of ingredients is so meant to be that I still think about that meal and have hoped to experience it again. It was light but satisfying. Anytime I see salmon with spinach and ginger on a menu, I think, that’s it, but of course it’s not so simple. The sauce can’t be heavy and the salmon can’t be dry and the soy sauce can’t overpower the other flavors. With all of that in mind, when I saw this salmon and coconut spinach dish in Donna Hay’s Off the Shelf, I had a feeling it would be great. This is close to the meal I remember, but the coconut milk and red chiles are an added touch. All the other flavors are there, and as a bonus, this is really quick to prepare.
Wild salmon was marinated with grated ginger, sesame oil, and soy sauce, and then it was briefly seared on each side. Meanwhile, I cleaned some spinach I received from my CSA. Garlic, chopped red chiles, and chlli paste were cooked in a saucepan with a little oil. Coconut milk and lemon juice were added and simmered. Then, in went the spinach which cooked until it wilted. The end. Dinner was ready. This was possibly the fastest meal I’ve made in months.
I accept that being on vacation, being away from home, being in a place for the sole purpose of having fun does indeed make food taste great, and that’s why I remember that meal so fondly. It’s also true that some ingredients just go together really well, and salmon, spinach, and ginger fit that description. This version with coconut milk and red chiles built on that theme. I enjoyed it as much as I thought I might, and I like that it wasn’t an exact re-creation. Instead, it became that great salmon and spinach meal I made at home that reminded me of that vacation.
James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame author, award-winning illustrator and designer, public speaker, and influential consultant and advisor are some ways to describe Mollie Katzen. She brought us the Moosewood Cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and Vegetable Heaven to name just a few of her books, and through her work, she has highlighted and popularized healthy and delicious vegetarian cooking. Her latest project is Get Cooking which is a very well-received series of books and videos for beginning cooks. Mollie explained that most of her reading time is spent with literature, but there was one food-related book she wanted to mention when I asked her what are you reading?
Mollie:
There is one food book that I just got and am madly in love with! An esteemed colleague, the great Portland chef (and gardener) Greg Higgins recommended this to me: Nigel Slater'sTender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch, and I bought it and found it enthralling. His love for vegetables and his recipe style are truly inspiring-like being born as a cook all over again.
Thank you for participating, Mollie! I actually received that book as a gift recently and can’t wait to read it. Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.
I had a disappointing bread experience a couple of weeks ago, and that’s not the bread I’m showing here today. That particular bread was the result of a time-consuming, all-day kind of baking project even though it wasn’t a sourdough bread. It required several folds and turns of the dough, and a nice, long proofing time. It did have a delicious, if tedious to prepare, filling of whole garlic cloves and balsamic syrup. Three heads worth of garlic were separated into cloves, boiled, and peeled, and then the garlic simmered in thick balsamic syrup. That syrup and the garlic were layered into the dough before the final folds. The bread smelled amazing as it baked. And, after all of that, it tasted, well, just alright. The crumb wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be, and while the flavor of the garlic was great, that of the bread itself wasn’t. That left me wanting to bake a really, really good loaf of bread, and that’s when I found this one on the Wild Yeast blog. Susan said this continues to be her favorite sourdough, and now I know why. There was of course some time involved in making it, but that was mostly fermenting or proofing, waiting, time. The active steps were actually very straightforward and quick compared to other sourdough bread recipes I’ve made. Outside, this bread was golden and crisp with a good, deep, crust taste, and inside, the crumb was flecked with color from rye flour, nicely chewy, and flavorful from the sourdough. Yes, this was a bread that was worth the wait.
The dough was made with only white starter, no commercial yeast, and I used bread flour and rye flour. The flours, starter, and water were mixed and left to rest before salt was added and the dough was mixed again. Then, it was transferred to a wide, oiled bowl. A wide bowl is a good choice so that the dough can be folded without removing it. The dough fermented for two and a half hours and was folded at 50 and 100 minutes, and this was so easy. Leaving the dough in a wide bowl and just coming back to fold twice was a breeze. After the two and a half hours, the dough was divided into four parts which were shaped into balls and left to rest for 15 minutes. Batard loaves were formed from the balls, and they were covered with plastic. The loaves could have spent the night in the refrigerator, but I left them at room temperature for a couple of hours and then baked them. I baked the loaves on a stone and sprayed water to produce steam during the first twelve minutes of baking time. Then, for the last five minutes, they baked with the oven door propped open, and last, the oven was turned off while the loaves sat in it for five more minutes. I love the crackling sounds you hear when the loaves have just come out of the oven. They sat on a cooling rack and made their noises, and I waited not so patiently to have a taste.
The crust was the deep, brown color that it was supposed to be, but I thought the surface was a little smooth. There’s a note in the recipe stating that if the formed loaves were refrigerated before being baked, the crust would be more blistered. I would have liked that, so I’ll plan for it next time. There will definitely be a next time. I timed it so the bread came out of the oven and cooled just before dinner. As dinner was being prepped, we cut into a loaf and dipped a few slices into seasoned olive oil. Then, we cut a few more slices. This delicious bread could easily become our favorite too. I’ve already almost forgotten that other experience, but I won’t rule out the possibility of one day layering some cooked garlic and balsamic syrup into this sourdough recipe.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
the other day. Since this is a book about family meals, it’s organized according to how planning meals at home supposedly happens. The chapters for main courses of meat and fish come first assuming those are chosen first, and they're followed by soups, salads, vegetables and side dishes, breads, and desserts which are picked to go with a main course. That makes sense. Although, I have been known to plan meals around a vegetable or salad I have in mind. This particular meal did involve barbecued chicken, but my real plan was to put together a menu that would include fresh, local corn. The creamed corn recipe in the book had stuck in my head, and I had to have it. Creamed corn may not ordinarily require a recipe, but in this case, it led me to adding cayenne and lime zest, and so I was happy to follow it. Then, the asparagus coins caught my eye. Rather than leaving the asparagus in spears, they were cut into nice, little rounds and cooked with chive oil and parsley water. Yes, it was just a tad fussy for a simple, home-cooked side dish, but the flavor was fantastic. 
which I’m looking forward to using from one season to the next. For the last year, I’ve 
, and 
is a classic of hers I 
, by William Bryant Logan, who wrote one of my favorite books, 
.
, but there’s still a lot of care taken and some intentional fussiness here and there. I was immediately inspired to put together the kind of family meal that this book encourages. On page two, Keller describes a meal he prepared for his father which included barbecued chicken. Believe it or not, in the recipe it states, “try to find a sauce with some integrity, preferably from a small producer.” Yes, that was a suggestion to use a purchased barbecue sauce. I couldn’t do it. For a Thomas Keller meal, I had to make my own sauce. I’ll describe the side dishes, which were from the book, in another post, but what I’m showing today is the sauce I made for the grilled chicken. I had saved this recipe from the June 2009 issue of Living magazine. In that issue, there was a 
, I had a feeling it would be great. This is close to the meal I remember, but the coconut milk and red chiles are an added touch. All the other flavors are there, and as a bonus, this is really quick to prepare.
, 
, and 
to name just a few of her books, and through her work, she has highlighted and popularized healthy and delicious vegetarian cooking. Her latest project is 
which is a very well-received series of books and 
, and I bought it and found it enthralling. His love for vegetables and his recipe style are truly inspiring-like being born as a cook all over again. 
