Mulled Wine or Cider for the Holidays

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Now that colder weather is finally here (last week we had several days that reached the upper 80s; global warming FTW!), my thoughts turn to holiday recipes. Mulled wine or cider is a perfect recipe for any fall or winter party. Not only does it taste delicious, but it’s simple to make and easily doubled or tripled. The bonus is that it makes the house smell terrific for your party guests. I made this for trick-or-treating last night, and it was a big hit. (This recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.)

Mulled Wine or Cider

Makes 4 to 6 servings.
Time: 15 minutes

• 1 bottle dry red wine or cider
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 1 orange, sliced, plus several orange slices reserved for garnish
• ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, or to taste
• 2 cloves
• 1 (3-inch) piece cinnamon stick or ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine the first six ingredients in a medium saucepan; turn the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until quite hot to the touch but not boiling. Strain out the solids and serve, garnished with fresh orange slices. Or leave to simmer on low to continue scenting the house.

You can probably also warm the cider or wine in the slow cooker. Enjoy!

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Fast Yeast Bread

I don’t know why I don’t make fresh bread every day. I really should with a recipe like this one for Fastest Yeast Bread from Mark Bittman. You can literally make the dough and bake the bread within 1 hour, although I think it tastes better the longer you let it rise. This isn’t the world’s best bread, but it sure beats what you get at the grocery store. And you can make it every day, without having to quit your job! Here’s the recipe.

Fastest Yeast Bread

From How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

• 3 cups (about 14 ounces) bread or all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water (1¼ cups if you omit the olive oil), plus more if necessary
• ¼ cup olive oil (optional)
• Coarse salt to taste (optional)
• one tablespoon of minced fresh herbs–such as parsley, dill or sage–for variety (optional)

Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a food processor. Add the water all at once, with the machine on; add the olive oil and continue to mix, about 30 seconds total with the food processor. Add water by the tablespoon if necessary, until a ball forms. (I usually do need to do this, but it requires no more than an additional tablespoon or two of water.)

Shape the dough into a flat round, adding only enough flour to allow you to handle the dough. Let rise in the warmest place in your kitchen, covered, while you preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Brush the loaf with water, sprinkle it with coarse salt if you like, and bake for 15 minutes. I usually bake it on a preheated pizza stone. Lower the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until done–the crust will be golden and crisp–about 30 to 45 minutes more.

Serve warm with butter or jam. This bread also makes good toast or even sandwiches.

How to Cook Without a Book

One of my cooking goals this year has been to cook more without using recipes. I do love cookbooks. I browse through them frequently and use them to come up with new ideas. I also enjoy challenging myself with difficult or new recipes when I have the time, usually on the weekends.

But during the week, when time is at a premium and energy is often at a low, I find it’s easier to cook without consulting a cookbook. I started seriously teaching myself how to cook about three years ago, and now I’ve reached the stage where I feel very comfortable winging it. Here are the keys to success that I have learned along the way.

The first is to learn some basic cooking techniques. While books on techniques are readily available, I’ve found that cookbooks that contain a lot of simple recipes are the best teachers. I highly recommend Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and Cooks’ Illustrated The New Basic Recipe, especially for learning basic methods of cooking meats and vegetables.

But don’t try to memorize every possible cooking technique. Sure, there are 101 one ways to cook chicken, but you don’t have to know them all. Instead, after sampling a few different ways of cooking a particular ingredient, pick one or two that you like best for the ingredients you cook most frequently. For instance, I like asparagus pan-roasted. I’m probably not going to bother steaming it, although that’s a fine way to cook it. For ingredients like chicken, I have 3 or 4 techniques in my repertoire, depending on whether I’m cooking bone-in pieces, boneless breasts or cutlets.

I keep a cooking notebook, where I list all the ingredients I usually buy, plus notes I’ve collected about them — including my favorite techniques for cooking that ingredient. This is also a good place to record notes on storage, freezing and any special prep required for that ingredient.

Next, develop a repertoire of key recipes, what I call master recipes. These should be recipes that you really like, which cook quickly and can adapt to whatever you have on hand. In my repertoire are a few soups, a handful of pasta recipes, an easy fish dish, and some one-dish meals like a stew, risotto, burritos and frittata. Although I prefer simply cooked vegetables or one-pot entrees, I also have a few side dishes in my roster, including some basic salads, a couple of potato dishes and a vegetable gratin.

Even though these recipes are easy to memorize, I record them in my recipe notebook in case I need to review the details. I rotate through them depending on what I have on hand to cook with, but I always make sure I have the foundations for my master recipes in my pantry.

The third key is to understand what flavors go together, especially when seasoning the dish. The Flavor Bible is a terrific reference. It lists pretty much every possible ingredient and the foods, herbs and seasonings that go best with it. You can pick and choose based on what you have and what you like.

Cooking this way makes grocery shopping a lot easier. I no longer make a list composed of what’s called for in the recipe, regardless of whether it’s in season or way too expensive. Instead, I look for produce that’s high-quality, in season and therefore usually cheaper. And I know that I need to replenish any foundation foods, dairy, eggs and meat when we’re running low and stock up when they’re on sale. I also treat myself to one or two cheeses — usually on sale — that will go well in salads or for snacking.

On the weekends, I spend some time making foods that will make it easier to cook during the week. For instance, I prep produce: washing, peeling, slicing. I also make a batch of chicken stock, a bottle of salad dressing and a loaf of bread or some pizza dough. I may make a sauce or pesto if I need to use up some surplus. This helps me avoid buying the packaged versions of these foods.

So I may not be posting as many recipes on this blog, since I am not cooking as many recipes anymore. Please share your tips for cooking without a book in the comments.

Blueberry Popsicles and Syrup

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It seems that blueberry season is upon us. We haven’t even been blueberry picking yet, but my fridge still overflows with fresh, cheap berries, or as my son calls them, “boobrees.” As in “mo boobrees. Peeeeze?” Here are a couple of ideas of what to do with excess blueberries.

Popsicles are always a tasty treat and super-easy to make, if you have the molds. Here is my master recipe, but it’s as simple as pureeing the fruit, mixing in enough water to thin and sugar to taste, and freezing. A food mill works well for pureeing berries as it strains out most of the seeds and stems for you.

As a special Sunday morning treat, make blueberry syrup for pancakes. You can use fresh or frozen berries for this syrup. Not only does it taste good on pancakes, but you can stir leftovers into yogurt or oatmeal to liven up your breakfasts all week. I expect it’s also very nice on top of ice cream or pound cake. (The recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.)

Blueberry Syrup

Serves: 4 or more
Time to make: ~15 minutes

• 2 cups blueberries, fresh or thawed
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp. water
• additional water as needed to thin (about ½ cup)
• sugar and lemon juice to taste

Combine the blueberries, cornstarch, water and a tablespoon or two of sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sauce thickens.  This takes about 10-15 minutes. Add more water as needed to thin, if necessary. Stir in lemon juice to taste and more sugar if needed. Refrigerate up to 1 week.

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Gazpacho + French Bread

Well, I haven’t been keeping up with my goal of posting daily entries on this blog, have I? The truth is that I haven’t been inspired to write. I’m doing a lot of cooking, but I’m either making tried-and-true recipes that I’ve already blogged about or I’m trying new projects but I don’t feel like posting the recipes for various reasons. Anyway, here’s a sample of what I’ve been cooking lately.

This past week, I made a lot of good stuff, including — after a stop at a roadside vegetable stand — gazpacho. It’s nice to have cucumbers and tomatoes again. Gazpacho is great with lots of garnishes. Try avocado, red onion or homemade croutons. Here is my recipe.

As part of my effort to reduce the amount of packaged foods I buy, I have taken to making my own bread. I have found that Mark Bittman’s recipes (in How to Cook Everything) offer the best compromise on flavor and effort. His recipes all use the food processor — I don’t have a standing mixer — so kneading time is minimal. I made this beautiful French loaf in just one day. This is the kind of bread you can make every day, if you like.

(Photos are courtesy of my husband. He posts them here.)

I may not be posting as much, but I hope you’ll keep checking in.

Spring Onions & Skordalia

If you have access to a farmers market, get over there and see if they are selling spring onions right now. Cut off the root ends and all but an inch or so of the green stalks. Then roast with some chicken. You will thank yourself.

On a different note, I tried making skordalia — a dip made from pureed bread and almonds. The recipe came from Mark Bittman’s Food Matters, but it was way too redolent of raw garlic. He suggested eating it with large beans such as edamame. We ended up just eating all the edamame plain, with a little salt. Edamame is a favorite and unexpected snack of my two-year-old. The two of us can kill a whole bag at snacktime.

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Fresh, Fast Bread, Lemon Curd & Artichokes

It was a big cooking day yesterday. I spent almost the whole afternoon in the kitchen, including a jaunt to the grocery store.

Sunday afternoons I usually have more freedom and leisure time than any other day of the week, so that’s when I like to do my “fun” cooking. Recently, my husband discovered lime curd at the farmers market, which he has been eating on his morning toast. I figured I could make him some — lemon curd, actually. Since it’s nothing more than a very thick custard, it was very easy to make, although it did require a lot of stirring. The end result was delicious, though, and will keep for about a week in the fridge. It works as a spread for toast and muffins, a pie filling, perhaps a base for ice cream? Hmmm.

I also made another Mark Bittman bread recipe, this time for fastest yeast bread, which rises and is ready to bake in just an hour or so. I actually let it rise the whole afternoon, which I’m sure improved the end result. The bread was a big hit at dinner. Unlike my previous loaves, this one is fine-crumbed and soft; it would be a good bread for toasting or sandwiches.

Finally, yesterday I experimented for the first — and quite possibly the last — time with whole artichokes. Let me say up front that artichokes are not one of my favorite ingredients, even pickled and in a jar. But with all the work that was required of stripping the leaves, cutting out the tough parts (of which I missed many) and getting out that ridiculous choke, I just didn’t believe the effort would be worth it. For me, it wasn’t, and I probably won’t be making artichokes again.

Dinner was poached chicken with the homemade bread and spring vegetables including the artichokes, spring onions and spinach. The chicken, which was poached with the vegetables, was light, moist and very flavorful.

Couscous for Breakfast? Pasta and Potatoes?

So when you’ve forbidden yourself from buying packaged cereals, granola, English muffins and bagels, what do you eat for breakfast? Mark Bittman has some unusual suggestions in his book Food Matters. Today I tried one of them: couscous. Why not? It’s a cereal, and it’s fast and easy to prepare. I dressed it up like I would oatmeal. Bittman also suggests treating bulgur or leftover cooked grains like rice the same way. Polenta would be good too, I’d bet.

Speaking of Bittman, I tried an unusual but very tasty recipe of his from How to Cook Everything last night. It combines pasta with potatoes. I wouldn’t normally build a meal based on two starches, but the resulting dish is very hearty and satisfying. It starts with a little minced bacon crisping in olive oil. Add some garlic and red pepper flakes for flavor; then add diced potatoes and let brown. Next, throw in a can of diced tomatoes, a can of water and about half a box of cut pasta. Let simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or so, adding more water if necessary, until the potatoes are cooked and the pasta is tender. The resulting mixture should be a little soupy. This was definitely a “go back for seconds” type of dish.

The Challenge: Avoiding Processed (or Packaged) Foods

It seems that all the healthy eating guidelines, whether from Michael Pollan or Mark Bittman or my doctor, include the admonition to “avoid processed foods.” I started thinking about this recently. What would it entail to avoid processed foods? What kind of impact might this diet change have on health, weight or the pocketbook?

First, what are “processed foods,” exactly? Generally, we think of processed foods as stuff like frozen meals, hamburger helper, chips, cookies and crackers from the grocery. But a processed food is any food that has been altered from its natural state. Frozen and canned foods are processed, as is pasta, bread, cheese, yogurt, juice and milk. Olive oil, soy sauce, mustard and vinegar can be considered processed foods. So can bacon, sausage and smoked salmon. Even flour and sugar are processed foods.

Obviously, not all processed foods should be put on the “bad” list, and I don’t think that’s what the people giving this advice intend for us to do. It’s not practical to eat a diet consisting entirely of whole foods, especially in seasons when fresh fruit and vegetables aren’t as abundant. In fact, I admire human ingenuity when it comes to food processing, which has enabled us to preserve our foods long after they would have otherwise gone bad through techniques such as curing, pickling, drying, canning and freezing.

I think “packaged foods” is a better way to think of the kinds of processed foods that should be avoided. These are foods that come in a package with brand names, health claims and unpronounceable ingredients on the sides. So I am challenging myself to reduce, as much as I can, packaged foods in my grocery shopping.

For me, a packaged food is anything that comes pre-packaged in the grocery store. Part of this challenge is to get myself to make more things at home that I would normally buy. So here are my rules for this challenge:

• If I can buy it in bulk (grains, beans, nuts) or I can put it in a package myself (locally baked bread) or the store packages it for me (meats, cheeses, dried fruits), then I consider it “unpackaged.”
• If the packaged item is a staple ingredient/food that I can’t easily make at home, I will continue to buy it. This includes condiments like soy sauce and mustard (but not mayonnaise or bottled sauces), pasta, yogurt, cheese, wine, tea and coffee.
• I will make an exception for vegetables that have short growing seasons whose packaged versions are superior for most of the year. These include canned tomatoes and frozen peas, soybeans and corn.

Those are all of the rules. I see this challenge as a way to get myself and my family to eat healthier, but also to stretch myself more in the kitchen. Instead of buying bread, stock, mayonnaise and crackers, I will need to make them myself when I want them.

For any of my family members who might be reading this, I am not planning to enforce this challenge on you. You will still be able to have your white bread and cheesy bunnies, at least until you decide to join in the challenge with me.

If you decide to take on a similar challenge, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to follow your progress.

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No-knead Bread and Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Yesterday I made chicken tortilla soup in the slow cooker. For a change of pace, I threw in some of the collards and kale I had on hand, even though it wasn’t called for in the recipe. I find that if I can get the vegetables into the main dish, we tend to eat more of them than if I make them as a side dish. My husband liked the soup enough to take this photo of it.

I also made the famous no-knead bread using the recipe in Jim Lahey’s My Bread. Actually, this bread takes 2 days to make, if you account for the rising time, but it is essentially a hands-off recipe (hence the “no-knead” in the title). The most difficult part, I found, was transferring the extremely sticky dough to the tea towel for the second rise and then into the preheated dutch oven. The bread is very flavorful, dense, chewy and slightly sour. It’s true what they say: Homemade bread does taste better than anything you can buy at the store.

This recipe is easy enough to give me the confidence to try more breads. My Bread provides several variations on the basic recipe. One of my cooking goals right now is to bake more of my own bread, and I’m sure this book will be a big help.

Here is Mark Bittman’s original recipe for Lahey’s No-Knead Bread, if you want to try to make it yourself.

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