Bluebird

Unruliness in the Kitchen

Most everyone has a messy kitchen drawer. I have at least three, but they are semi-categorized. This is my baking drawer. It may look haphazard, but I know exactly what's inside, even if I have lost sight of my half teaspoons lately. Not to worry. When baking cookies, I can always double up on the quarter teaspoon.

These Brown Butter Cookies are dedicated to those types that prefer pure butter and brown sugar, c'est moi. Kinda like a chocolate chipper sans chips, they called for something new to me--vanilla paste. Ever curious, I sourced some even if it was a bit spendy. The proof is in the cookie, though, cause my niblets loved them.

 

 

The key is to brown the butter to a light brown nuttiness. There's an awful lot, but it's the only liquid along with eggs.

The swirling vortex of brown sugar enlivened by the browned butter.

I adapted the recipe from a bakery in Pasadena. The dough is rather crumbly, but it baked all right. Here's the link: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-sos-brown-butter-cookies-20130406,0,4763560.story

Orecchiette looks like Quisp...

When my children misbehave on a haggard Sunday night, I ply them with plates of pasta. Although a bit putzy, I had to try a recent NY Times recipe because it featured two of my faves: broccoli rabe and Italian sausage. It's a traditional spin on pesto, which this household can never get enough of. 

A batch of pre-frosted sugar skulls from my daughter's school Halloween carnival, which we attended this afternoon. It only served to stir them up beyond reason with all the cake walks, inflatable giant slides and pumpkin tosses endured today. Gladly, it did not rain so we were only sunburned.

The little ears of orrechiette pasta resemble a favorite childhood cereal, now extinct...Quisp. It featured a blue martian on the box, and made it's Saturday morning cartoon-fueled debut with a partner cereal called King Vitamin. I still remember its theme song..."King Vitamin, have breakfast with a king, get a sweet corn taste...and all the vitamins you need." I do not recall the Quisp commercial. 

The article recommends starting with a burrata and following with a simple grilled bass. Sadly, the fishmonger had no bass, so we bought burrata, a baguette and some mounds bars--it is candy season, you know.

Orecchiette With Sweet Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Pesto

Adapted from Perla, New York

TOTAL TIME

45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• Salt
• 1/2 pound broccoli rabe, stems trimmed off and discarded or saved for another use
• 3 cloves roasted garlic, peeled
• 10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
• 1 cup finely chopped fennel bulb
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casing removed
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 500 grams (about 1 1/4 pounds) dried orecchiette, or fresh (made with 4 cups of flour)

PREPARATION

1.

Bring 3 quarts water to a boil in a pot and add 1 tablespoon salt. Add broccoli rabe and cook about 5 minutes, until tender. Drain and place in a large bowl of ice water. Drain and squeeze dry. Turn on a food processor and drop garlic in through the feed tube. Stop machine, scrape down sides and add broccoli rabe. Pulse until finely chopped. Stop machine. Add 6 tablespoons oil. Pulse until pesto comes together but is not creamy or thoroughly emulsified. Transfer to a bowl and fold in ¼ cup cheese.

2.

Heat remaining 4 tablespoons oil in a large sauté pan on low. Add fennel and onion, and cook until soft but not brown. Add sausage and cook, mashing it to a fine crumble, until it is no longer pink. Add chicken stock and cook until the stock has mostly evaporated and just glazes the sausage. Transfer sausage mixture to a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Return sausage to the pan. Fold in broccoli rabe pesto. Set aside.

3.

Bring large pot of salted water to a boil. Add orecchiette and cook until al dente, about 7 minutes. Reheat sausage mixture and add about ½ cup of the pasta water. Drain pasta and add to pan with the sausage mixture. Toss ingredients together until pasta is evenly coated. Fold in remaining ½ cup cheese, check seasoning and serve.

YIELD

6 servings

 

Cause they're mad for meatloaf...

I put it off for days, but they would not be ignored with their deep need for a nicely seasoned loaf of meat. Switching back and forth between two favorite recipes, I chose the more traditional Bill Blass. Though it specifies a bottle of Heinz Chili Sauce, which I adore--I punted with this sweet and spicy catsup from the produce shop. Lastly, BB was old school with a preference for veal--a decided no no here, so I used chuck. It's a big loaf of meaty yum, accompanied by garlic mashers and a tomato/zucchini gratin. Big Sunday dinner to brace us for the week ahead...

Bill Blass's Meatloaf

ADAPTED FROM ''NEW YORK COOKBOOK''

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 pounds ground beef sirloin
• 1/2 pound ground veal
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 cups Heinz chili sauce
• 3 slices bacon

PREPARATION

1.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil an 8-by-4-inch loaf pan. In a heavy skillet over medium heat, saute the celery and onion in the butter until soft, about 5 minutes. Scrape into a large mixing bowl and cool.

2.

When the onions are cool enough to handle, add the meats, parsley, sour cream, bread crumbs, thyme, marjoram and salt and pepper to the skillet. Whisk the egg with the Worcestershire sauce and add to the mixture. Using a wooden spoon or your hands, combine the mixture and mold into the shape of a loaf.

3.

Place the meatloaf in the prepared pan. Top with the chili sauce and bacon slices. Bake until firm and nicely browned, about 1 hour.

YIELD

Six to eight servings

 

 

Soup and Sammies

The holy grail of supper...How can one not combine tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches? Mashed two recipes together when the first one fell to pieces but I do believe I created a keeper of a tomato soup.

A Slab of Chocolate Chipper Dough

India and I made the chocolate chip cookie recipe from the latest Saveur. An unusual approach, it called for rolling the dough with the chocolate bits between the layers of dough. Since it wouldn't all fit inside, I sprinkled some on top. The end result? The chocolate was unevenly dispersed but no one minded here. If not exactly lookers, they were decidedly delish--according to my informal nuclear familia poll.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sarah Copeland, author of The Newlywed Cookbook (Chronicle Books, 2011)

MAKES ABOUT 2 DOZEN

INGREDIENTS

2 ¼ cups flour
¾ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. kosher salt
16 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
9 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 375°. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl; set aside. Combine butter, both sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl; beat on medium-high speed with a hand mixer until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add yolks two at a time, beating after each addition; add dry ingredients; beat on low speed until just combined. Transfer dough to a work surface; divide into 3 equal pieces. Flatten each into a 4″ x 6″ rectangle; wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 30 minutes.

2. Place one dough rectangle on a floured work surface; sprinkle with half the chocolate. Top with another rectangle, sprinkle with remaining chocolate, and cover with last rectangle. Using a floured rolling pin, flatten rectangles into a 9″ x 6″ x 1 ½″ rectangle. Using a 2″ round cutter, cut out cookies; transfer to parchment paper—lined baking sheets, spaced 3″ apart. Gather scraps, reroll into a 1 ½″-thick disk; cut out more cookies. Bake, rotating baking sheets halfway through cooking, until lightly browned and set, about 15 minutes.

 

So this bag of Yukon Golds met a jar of Duck Fat in the back of my refrigerator...

Stress sends me to my kitchen. Happiness equals a well-cooked meal, hence my contented tummy from this daring riff on our usual go-to's. Be assured, I am no cookbook daredevil but rather a lowly follower with an appetite outsized my confidence, especially what with my lacking knife skills. To wit: the suggestion of the family-friendly Sloppy Jo's for dinner met with mixed reaction. One niblet loves, the other says too sweet, hence my brilliant compromise. I subbed Sriracha sauce for the usual sweeteners. Paired with broccoli and a slew of Yukon Golds par-boiled, smashed and roasted in duck fat, it was a satisfactory compromise and improvised by me!

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/sloppy-joe-dip-cocktails-2007

I did not follow this exactly, but I think it's probably the most American recipe to improvise, as well as the most forgiving.

For the tators, I boiled, smashed and stuck them in the oven smeared all over in duck fat. Took longer than frying, but I much preferred it.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-smashedfries-rec1-20120908,0,1127926.story

Chocolate Baby

Gobsmacking goodness here...

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-proof-bakery-rec2-20120929,0,3196309.story

Lambkins

Take some lamb shanks, sear fiercely and braise with perfect partners for several hours, ie portabellas and red wine. It's from Tom Douglas, the Seattle chef who created it for Amtrak. 
Thus a fine dinner is born, especially when followed by a flourless chocolate cake.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/dailydish/la-dd-this-weeks-culinary-sos-amtraks-lamb-shanks-20120928,0,1449085.story

don't hate me because the bacon wasn't nitrate-free...

We also neglected to buy an avocado, which usually makes our fave late summer dinner into BALT's. Still, the plain old chemical filled BLT's tonight were astounding thanks to the plethora of phenominal tomatoes plucked in their utmostly perfect state intact from the garden (not mine but whatever.) And anyway, isn't all bacon super tasty?

When dinner is the opposite of fashionable...

As the sun dips below the canyon here tonight, we're serenaded by the grating drone of a neighbor's nonstop shop-vac. I look out through our postcard of a window wall and try to memorize its heartstopping beauty, however it may prove to be in vain. This makes me rueful, so I look away and pour a glass of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, hoping it coagulates 'good luck' for us from a friendly distance. Somewhat sentimental after more than a few tense-filled past days, I am compelled to sit and soak in the view, if only in search of positivity. To wit:

I am always thankful for De Cecco gnocchi on a night such as this, cause it makes a quick pesto dinner that much easier.

 


And with a passle of fresh tomatoes, how could I avoid the ubiquitous caprese?

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Insalata-Caprese-13232

I know it's the quiche Lorraine of the late last century, but when tomatoes are as good as this, I don't give a fig for trendiness. Topped with basil, mozzerella and some spices before annointing with olive oil...this leaves little room for error. And we need to lubricate our current worries and concerns with good oil and garlic.

The moral here is as usual: oh well, there is always dinner to look forward to...