I Wasn't Doing Any Cooking of My Own 2

Wait long enough and someone else will do your writing for you.

Here is an account, by Rich, of the food we ate at SPQR.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

***

Of course, the person who burned her face on gourmet food was me*. In the unlikely event that anyone was wondering. It was insanely embarrassing, but I'm glad we got a comp out of it, at least. That's me, always taking one for the team!



*Gee, I hope you've already read it!

Just in Time for your Post-Super Bowl Bash!

How do you show your appreciation for your Super Bowl hosts?

Since we don't have a TV, we have to rely on the kindness of our friends in order to watch the biggest game of the year! And of course, no showing up empty-handed!!

I figured that other people would be taking care of the old favorites (I was right; there were wings, salsa, onion dip, some guacamole, and this really amazing spinach dip that someone had got up early to make!), so I trolled through my stack of recipes-to-try and surfaced with this Hummus variation from theppk.com.

Hummus Amungus

Prep Work:
Chop enough onion to make 1/2 cup
Mince 2-4 cloves of garlic
Chop three tomatoes
Seed one hot pepper, any variety*
Mix together:
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp cayenne
and set aside.
Juice one lime
Chop 1/4-1/2 cup fresh cilantro.

Saute the onion in 1 tsp oil for five minutes. Add the garlic and the spice mix for an additional 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent sticking.

Add the tomatoes, then cover and lower heat to simmer for five minutes.

Meanwhile, drain and reserve the liquid of a 15 ounce can of chickpeas. Add the peas to the food processor with just enough of the liquid to blend.

Add the chickpeas to the hot tomato mixture, add the lime juice and cilantro, and stir well to blend.

Can be served hot or cold, and I accompanied mine with mini-pitas and some tortilla chips.




*Am a big fat wuss, so left this out, resulting in a "zippy" hummus rather than a "spicy" one.

I wasn't doing any cooking of my own.

SPQR
Originally uploaded by gaffentine

We spent the weekend with friends in San Francisco, ostensibly to SEE our friends, but really to eat at SPQR on Fillmore.

Save your pennies, because it is worth every. single. one.

If I can remember, I will soon post the dishes we partook of at this scrum-diddly-umptious restaurant.

What to do with the leftovers from Roast Chicken, if you indeed have any.

Chicken Pot Pie!
Originally uploaded by gaffentine

Even though Matt's brother was there for the Roast Chicken, we managed to have leftovers, so I turned back to my old friend Google, and started compiling all the returns for "chicken pot pie" into one convoluted yet cohesive whole. I did not want, for instance, to make a bottomless pie in a pie tin, but I did want to use celery. I didn't want to make a biscuit-top...thing in the cast iron skillet, but I did want to use white wine.

I also had to account for the fact that no one on the Internet seems to make a chicken potpie with fresh vegetables. Most of the recipes called for a "16 oz bag mixed frozen vegetables". Ew. I did, however, end up throwing a handful of frozen peas, the ones that I keep on hand to break up the monochromatic appearance of the Favorite Lentils EVER, into the skillet at the last possible minute!

ANYWAY. After I turned the oven to 425, I cut the meat off the chicken (we ended up with a breast, a thigh and a leg), then washed, skinned and chopped two potatoes and three carrots, and diced and sliced one onion and three stalks of celery, respectively.

Sauteed the potatoes and carrots in a cast iron, and therefore oven proof skillet, with a tablespoon of butter for about five minutes, then added another pat of butter and the "soft" vegetables: the onion and celery. After another three minutes, I tossed the chicken in with everything else, and turned off the stovetop.

Rolled out the (Trader Joe's) piecrust (nope, still can't make my own), and used a tiny cookie cutter to make four decorative "steam holes" in it, tossed a handfull of frozen peas into the pie, and then had Matt drape the crust over the top of the skillet (with his mad pizza-making skillz, he is much better at draping crusts than I am!), and then I brushed it all over with melted butter.

Into the over for about 15 minutes, and then under the broiler for about five, et voila!

It was pretty good.

Finger-lickin' Roast Chicken

I used to think that a Roast Chicken was a Roast Chicken was a Roast Chicken, but then I realized that no on made Roast Chicken quite like Mama fixed it, and then I tried to replicate the tastes myself (why I didn't just ASK her, I'll never understand, although I'd prefer her recipe for Chicken and Rice Casserole...hint, hint) and then I did a little Google action and saw just HOW MANY* variations there are so I picked one at random and made it when Matt's brother came to visit.

I selected this result, and here is the paraphrasing:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Take 1 five and a half pound free range chicken, remove the giblets, rinse with cool water and pat dry.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 pound of softened butter with one half handful each of fresh thyme, oregano and parsley, chopped fine, and just mash them all together in there. (Might as well use your hands, because that's how this stuff gets to the chicken, anyway! It's quite a messy and fun operation!)



Rub the herbed butter under the skin, and all over the outside of the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stuff the cavity with a halved orange, a half a clove of garlic and a halved onion. Place the bird in the baking dish breast side up and add one whole onion to the bottom of the dish. Arrange six slices of onion across the breast of the chicken, and roast for 25 minutes.

Remove the bacon, baste the chicken with the drippings, and roast another 25 minutes, until the skin is brown and a thermometer in the leg reads 165.

Remove to a platter and let stand ten minutes, to let the juices settle.

This is when I scraped the drippings into a saucepan (my baking dish is glass, so I couldn't put it on a stovetop burner) over medium heat, added 2 tablespoons of flour, and stirred in 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Once the flour was all dissolved, I put in the 1/4 cup of dry sherry, and dashed in some salt and pepper.

Matt carved the chicken, while I rescued the orange halves from the cavity and squeezed them over the pieces of chicken on the serving plate.




The flavors of orange and thyme were particularly interesting together, in a very good way, while the buttered outside made for a crispy skin with a VERY juicy meat. This is definitely something I'll be making again!!




*I didn't actually see each and every one of them, but that particular Google return was quite extensive.

The Black Bean Chili of Bliss

So, I can't remember where I found it (typical) but I bought (secondhand, duh) a copy of this book called "Sacramental Magic in a Small-Town Cafe", mostly because the subtitle was "Recipes and Stories from Brother Juniper's Cafe", and if there is anything I love more than recipes, it is a story that goes with it, and even more than a story, I do love me a monk. Then I go and buy Brother Juniper's Bread Book, and then a few MORE cookbooks at a Friends of the Library book sale*, and then Matt sighs and shakes his head and encourages me to log in some hours at The Job.

So, anyway, apparently Brother Juniper was not a REAL person running this cafe; it "is dedicated to the spirit of a famous Franciscan monk (ed note: hoo-rah! monk!) named Brother Juniper...The original Brother Juniper is chronicled in the legends (ed note: !) of St. Francis of Assisi. He was St Francis' favorite monk because he was simple, humble and generous..." (Prologue, "Sacramental Magic in a Small-Town Cafe") Very cool.

One of the chapters was titled "The Zen of Black Bean Chili", and I followed the recipe and made some awesome black bean chili, but, as with any new recipe, I didn't feel very Zen about it until everyone** had tasted and pronounced it good.


And here it is!

Black Bean Chili, from Brother Juniper's Cafe.

#Wash and check over 4 cups of raw dried black beans, and put them to soak in 10 cups of water at room temperature for at least four hours, but preferably overnight.
Drain beans, and discard water.

#In a heavy stockpot*, bring the beans and12 cups of water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally until the beans begin to soften, about 1 ½ hours.
Cooking time depends on the size of the beans, so keep any eye on ’em while you do your prep work!

#Dice 2 medium onions, mince or press 8 large cloves of garlic, and dice enough chilies to make 2 cups. (Mild, medium or hot is up to you.) Dice 1 ¾ pounds of tomatoes (or take the 28 oz can shortcut, WITH juice), and pour or prepare** a cup of beef (or vegetable!) stock. (They actually recommend 1 tablespoon beef stew base, but I couldn't find any Better Than Bouillon, which is the same thing, so I improvised using the cartons of stock they sell at Trader Joe's. It came out a tiny bit soupier than I would normally like, but what can you do?)

#Toast 1 tablespoon whole cumin seeds in a dry frying pan over medium heat, stirring constantly until they begin to crackle and pop, about 1 minute. Remove the seeds from the pan, pour in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and turn the heat to High.

#Once then oil is hot, add the onion, garlic and chilies, and sauté until onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in the cumin seeds and immediately remove from heat. Cover the pan, so that everything can steam together.

#When the beans are soft, stir in the onion mixture and add the tomatoes and 1 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper. Stir in 1 tablespoon salt, the stock, and 4 tablespoons of soy sauce.

#Simmer until liquid is reduced, and the chili has a consistency between soup and gravy. Add more soy sauce if necessary; those bean really soak up the saltiness!

#Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream, garnish with freshly chopped cilantro and a spoonful of red or green salsa!

(Serve bowls of crème fraiche/sour cream and salsa on the side, so people more or less adventurous than you can make adjustments!)


*This usually goes without saying, but I’m just saying: avoid aluminum, because you will be using tomatoes, and that’s a nasty reaction!

**I use the jars of Better Than Bouillon chicken, Beef or Vegetable paste to make my stocks. They last a LOT longer than anything I can make from scratch, unless I freeze it, and when I freeze things like stock I usually forget about it until we’re out of ice, and grab THAT ice cube tray, and I say, “Oh, right, this stuff…” So I don’t even bother, anymore!



Bon Appetit!



*Ten cents each, y'all. I am not even joking!

**I made it at Anna B.'s house for her, her mom and her brother.

I should retitle this The Hypocrite Chef

So much for getting back on the healthy-eating bandwagon*.

Two nights ago, instead of making cous-cous and a goat cheese salad, I let Matt talk me into ordering a pizza and watching back-to-back Law and Order (via Netflix Watch Instantly program, which is swiftly defeating the purpose of not having a television0.

I think I'm resigned to the fact that we're in hibernation, but that doesn't mean pizza and TV for the rest of the winter. We'll just be a lot less adventurous in the culinary department. For example, today I am making this. AGAIN.


*I did make the tahini sauce, but it came out weird, mostly because I tried to "liven it up" with garlic and parsley, and it ended up tasting...garlicky and parsley-y, and not at all in a good way. :(