Oofta

A good friend of mine went to law school in Minneapolis, and I went to visit her several times while she was there. I was living in upstate NY at the time so the snow and cold weren't toooo shocking to me. As two young women who grew up in Arizona, we were experiencing real snow and winter for the first time in our 20s, and we were always on the phone with each other comparing the weather. We came to the conclusion that Minnesota is colder, but upstate NY is snowier.

Anyways, on my visits I always enjoyed seeing that strong Scandinavian heritage peeking through in the modern day. Garrison Keillor is only exaggerating a little bit when he tells those Lake Wobegon stories. So much of the country feels the same. When you get off an airplane in so many cities, it's hard to tell where you have landed. In Minneapolis, it was fun to hear about a "hot dish" a "parking ramp" and I especially loved the word, "oofta." I'm not a Minnesotan, but I believe it roughly translates to "uggh."

This is all background for one morning last week. The baby woke me up at 5:00 AM and just wouldn't go back to sleep. I decided we might as well head down stairs and get our morning started. With each step, the temperature dropped colder and colder. I was so cold when I got into the kitchen, I exclaimed, "Oofta, we need to do something to warm up this house." (Which was funny because I hadn't thought about my Minneapolis visits for a great while - I guess the cold took me back.) It was in the 40s outside, and not much warmer inside because we had left the kitchen window open (in our defense - it had been hot only the day before). I decided to turn on the oven. With my foggy brain I just thought of turning on the oven to use as a heat source, but then quickly decided that would be a waste of gas, so decided to throw in a couple sweet potatoes. After we warmed up a bit, I decided to put the baby in her high chair and roll it into the kitchen. I dug around in the fridge to realize that we were low on our breakfast staples - we had one egg, no yogurt, no milk, no bacon. Things weren't looking too good. Luckily I found some leftovers to start feeding baby girl, and I started cooking. I still wasn't warm all the way through, so I started by making some soup. I had broth and leftover chicken added some zucchini, onions and carrots.  While it was cooking, I prepped vegetables for lunch and dinner, and felt I had gotten a lot done by the time our toddler and my husband got up to start their day.

The results were an unconventional breakfast, but great for warming you up whatever the time of day.... or season. Sometimes simple is the best.

Chicken, zucchini and carrot soup with freshly baked sweet potato and butter and hot tea.

Chicken, Zucchini and Carrot Soup

1 T butter

1 onion, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

2 medium zucchini, chopped

1 Quart Chicken Broth

2 C chicken, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 t thyme

Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Add the onion and carrots and cook until the onions begin to soften. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until the zucchini is tender. Enjoy.

Beef and Cauliflower Soup

We have been trying to follow a Paleo/Primal diet for a while. It started when our first daughter and I had a stubborn case of thrush and a holistic nutritionist I met said that dietary changes were the only way we were going to kick it for good. We have fallen off the wagon several times, but we notice that we feel better when we cut back on grains and other starchy foods.

Well with a new baby at home, I was very focused on quick easy meals that our toddler would eat with us. We relied on pasta more than I'd like to admit, and the times that we did get the paleo style meals I hoped for, it was pretty boring. Everything was pan fried or steamed because I didn't want to turn the oven  on during the Phoenix summer, and not much seasoning. Just some type of meat or fish and two vegetables and repeat.

I happened on The 30 Day Guide to Paleo Cooking by Hayley Mason and Bill Staley at the library. We started cooking our way through it and really enjoyed it. It includes meal plans and shopping lists which I love (I've always been a sucker for those), and the food tastes great. My one complaint is that I don't like the mix of meals. We are talking about cooking our way through it again, but I think I will rewrite the meal plans and shopping lists so that you don't end up with a bunch of beef one week, lots of fish the next, or lots of greens followed by only white and yellow veggies, etc. I'll be sure to share my rewritten meal plans and shopping lists with you.

One of the recipes we recently tried was for Bison Stew. We had to use beef because our Meat Shop didn't have any bison stew meat. The results were delicious. I love the combination of beef broth and cauliflower. It tastes so rich and decadent. Yum!

Beef and Cauliflower Soup (based on The Food Lovers Kitchen)

2 lbs. beef stew meat
1 T coconut oil
1 onion, chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
6 cups of beef broth
3 sprigs of thyme
3 sprigs of rosemary
1 head of cauliflower, broken into small florets
fermented sauerkraut
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the meat in the coconut oil in a large Dutch oven. Remove the meat from the pan. Add the onion, celery and carrots and cook until the onions are translucent. Add the meat and broth to the pot.  Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 5-6 hours, adding the cauliflower for the last hour of cooking. Top with sauerkraut and serve.

This post is part of Alphabe-Thursday, Full Plate Thursday and Frugal Food Thursday.

Pretending It's Fall

I don't know if you've heard, but Phoenix is really hot. I'm talking about 118 degrees for most of the week after our daughter was born in June. But the extreme temperatures aren't the worst part of it, the worst part is how long the heat lasts. The monotony of hot and sunny weather day after day really gets old. Now this might seem like a lame complaint while parts of the country are already facing snow, but we had a high of 95 degrees  last week. That's just ridiculous for the middle of November. I've started to wear jeans and long sleeve shirts in order to feel like the weather is changing. I've also started to make some roasts and soups (more relevant to discussions here) to have a change of pace from the salads and lighter meals we favor during the summer.

We had a delicious brisket last week as part of my effort to celebrate fall through fashion and food. In addition to working well for fall, it requires very little hands-on prep, and one cooking session prepared a couple of meals. Both qualities that I look for in a meal these days with a two year old and four month old running and rolling around. We got the recipe out of The 30 Day Guide to Paleo Cooking, but I have included an on-line link for the recipe.

Fall Brisket (from The Food Lovers Kitchen)

2 yellow onions, chopped
5 lb beef brisket
salt
pepper
dried basil
oregano
1 can tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spread onion in baking pan. Generously sprinkle salt, pepper, basil and oregano over both sides of the brisket. Place the meat on the onions. Bake for 1 hour uncovered. Sprinkle additional basil and oregano and pour the tomato sauce over the brisket. Bake for 4 more hours, flipping halfway through.

Let rest and then thinly slice, and serve with sauce spooned over the top.

This post is part of Gluten Free Wednesdays, WFMW and Allergy Free Wednesdays.

Knockwurst with Sauerkraut, Potato Hash and Red Chard

Sometimes a dinner is tasty because of fancy sauces or special cooking techniques, but sometimes a good meal just lets the flavors of quality ingredients shine through. This meal falls into the latter category (also known as an easy meal). We found some beef knockwurst at the farmers market last weekend and thought it would be a perfect mid-week meal. It was delicious served with some Bubbies lacto-fermented sauerkraut and mustard. I am partial to Kosciusko Spicy Brown Mustard. We first found it at a Polish market in the East Village of New York City, but then we came to realize that it is available everywhere. We served our knockwurst with a potato and onion hash and sauteed red chard.

It's so simple that no recipes are needed. But I will give you a couple of tips:

• Boil the knockwurst for 10 minutes and just cook it in a pan for a few minutes to brown it up. It stayed incredibly moist and juicy. We will always be using this technique in the future.
• Cook the potatoes and onions separately to help the potatoes to stay crispy. My husband fried up the potatoes and got them nice and crisp, and then added the onions. The onions released so much liquid that the potatoes became mushy. I think cooking them separately would solve this problem (unless you would like them mushy).

What's a simple meal that you love to make that let's the ingredients shine through?


This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Frugal Food Thursday, Alphabe-Thursday, and URS: Potato Recipes.

A Downton Abbey Dinner of Roast and Root Vegetables

Have you been watching Downton Abbey? We have become totally addicted. I had never heard of it until it got so many Golden Globe nominations. We decided to check it out on Netflix, and we were immediately hooked. We finished season 1 just in time to watch season 2 on PBS. The only problem is that it's 9:00-11:00 airtime doesn't really jive with my new mother sleep schedule (for me that means a 9:30 bedtime). So the last few episodes we watched on-line on Monday nights from 7:30-9:30 - perfect for my schedule.



When we think of British food, one dish that comes to mind is a roast and root vegetables all smothered in gravy (this perception is at least partly shaped by our trip to England last year). So each week for Sunday supper (sometimes on Monday) we have been having some type of roast and vegetables.

This week we enjoyed a bottom round roast with onions, potatoes, turnips and parsnips and onion gravy. Mmm, mmm good. I love gravy (it's my second post on it in two days), but what sets this gravy apart is that it is pretty sweet. The onions become very sweet after roasting for so long and impart their flavor on the rest of the dish.Now that Downton Abbey has come to an end, I guess we are on the hunt for a new show (and some new dinner inspiration). Any Suggestions?

Bottom Round Roast with Root Vegetables
2 T olive
2.5 lb bottom round roast
3 large onions, cut into thick slices
2 T apple cider vinegar
6 potatoes, chopped
6 carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces
2 turnips, chopped
2 parsnips, chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a roasting pan over medium high heat, and add some oil. Brown the roast on all sides (about 4 minutes per side). Add the onions and vinegar, and put in the oven. Bake for 2 hours. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook for 2 more hours, or until the meat and vegetables and tender. Let meat rest for 10 minutes before carving. Slice into thin slices and enjoy.

Onion Gravy
2 T butter
2 T flour
1 C of juice released from the onions, meat and vegetables

Method
Heat the butter in a skillet and slowly stir in the flour. Cook the butter and flour for 5 minutes over medium heat. Slowly add the liquid and stir constantly. Cook until the gravy reaches the desired consistency.

We have been avoiding grains, but I still use flour in the gravy (it's my little cheat). I like the thickness from the flour, and it reheats nicely.

This post is part of Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tasty Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Beauty and Bedlam, Allergy Free Wednesday, and Real Food Wednesday, Works for Me Wednesday.

One Smoked Pork Shoulder and Six Meals

A bowl of split pea soup garnished with crispy bacon.

Last Saturday, we bought a smoked pork shoulder. We were told that a great way to prepare it was to boil it for 2.5 - 3 hours to draw out the excess salt. So we gave it a go, and boiled it all afternoon. We have proceeded to eat off that one piece of meat ever since. It has inspired us to look for other cuts of meats that we can stretch just as far in future weeks. Do you have any suggestions?

Something we noticed shopping at the grocery store was that it was really hard to tell what season it was. They had artichokes and plantains on sale in February! We decided to go for it since all of the vegetables came from somewhere else anyways. Hopefully this week, we will be able to make it to the farmers market and get back on track with our seasonal foods.

Meal 1 - We were inspired by our trip to England to have some ham and eggs for dinner with a side of plantains and a big salad (it didn't make the photo).


Meal 2 - Ham with artichoke and salad. I know it looks more like an Easter dinner than one in February, but all the vegetables came from another quadrant of the world, and the artichokes were on sale...


Meal 3 - Breakfast of eggs, ham and plantains. I had never had plantains before living in NYC and this week was my first time making them at home. They are pretty low on the glycemic index and inexpensive.


Meal 4 and 5 - Split pea soup is such a satisfying winter meal. Please see below for the recipe.

Meal 6 - Some ham and swiss sandwiches with salad. I didn't take a photo.


Split Pea Soup Inspired by Burnt Offerings' on Food 52

Ingredients
1/2 lb bacon, sliced into lardons
4 carrots, diced
4 ribs of celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
1/2 t sage
1/2 t thyme
1 t rosemary
3 bay leaves
1 lb dried split peas
2 lb smoked ham hock (or this time I used the shoulder joint and the remaining meat)
8 C water or chicken stock

Method
Place a Dutch oven over medium low heat, and add the bacon. Once the bacon is crispy, remove from the pan and set aside for garnish. Add the carrots, celery and onion to the pan and cook for 15 minutes (or until tender). Add the sage, thyme, rosemary and bay leaves and stir to combine. Spread the peas out on a cookie sheet and check for stones. Remove any stones and add to the pot. Nestle the ham hock or pork shoulder into the peas and vegetables, and add the water or chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and lower heat. Cook for about 2.5 hours. Remove the ham hock or pork shoulder, let cool, remove the meat and chop into bite size pieces. Add the meat back into the pot. It is ready to enjoy. Dish up and garnish with the bacon.

* I only have 1 cup glass measuring cups and I didn't want to have to measure out 8 cups of water with them, so I thought of using our coffee pot carafe. Each "cup" on the coffee maker is 6 ounces, so just under 11 cups= 64 ounces, or 8 cups. Thought I'd pass my tip along.



This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Frugal Food Thursday, Alphabe-Thursday, and Sunday Night Soup Night.

Sausage, Bean and Vegetable Soup

All week I have been looking forward to going to the Wayland Winter Farmers' Market and the raw milk dairy today. On our trip to the dairy last weekend, we realized that there is a farmers' market along the way on Saturdays (perfect!). But my hopes were dashed on Thursday when the weather man started predicting that we were going to get a major snow storm today. I was so disappointed. It was definitely not worth the risk of travelling 40 miles in a snow storm, so I thought I might have to find another way to do our food shopping for the week. Luckily, I woke up this morning to learn that the storm is going to miss us, and it looks like our field trip is back on. (It's the little things in life that make us happy, right?)

Soups and stews are such satisfying meals during the winter. I love the flavors in this soup so much that I have made a version of this three times in the last month. The recipe started with just spicy sausage, white beans and kale in chicken broth, but I have kept adding vegetables each time. This time around it was not a looker. We had purple cabbage that I wanted to eat up, so I added it in, and it definitely turned the whole soup a crazy color. I think I will stick with green cabbage in the future (unless it's Halloween). Some soups require lots of time for the flavors to develop, but the spicy sausage and chicken stock immediately give this soup a shot of flavor, so it is pretty quick to make.



Sausage, Bean and Vegetable Soup

2 T olive oil
1 lb spicy sausage
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
1/2 cabbage, thinly sliced
1 bunch of kale, torn into bite size pieces
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups of white beans

Heat up oil in a Dutch oven and brown the sausage. Remove the sausage, and add the carrot, onion, celery and cabbage to the pot. Cook until tender (about 30 minutes). Add the kale, chicken stock and white beans. Cook until the kale is tender (15-30 minutes).

This post is part of Sunday Night Soup Night.

Jambalaya

I was inspired by Laura over at Cooking in Kenzo and her efforts to eat entirely out of her freezer, fridge and pantry. I decided it was time for us to undertake a similar effort. Now she has an enviable situation of being the proud owner of a chest freezer, and I can only dream of such food storage capacity, but it's still time to clean out some leftovers before they become freezer burned.

My husband made up a delicious batch of jambalaya out of our leftovers. We have both worked at restaurants in the past while we looked for "real" jobs- I usually worked in the front of house and he usually worked in the kitchen. At one restaurant, he made big batches of jambalaya in a convection oven. They threw all the ingredients in raw and cooked it all together. This time around he made it in a dutch oven. We didn't really have enough rice in the cupboard, so he supplemented it with some wild rice we had on hand. It turned out really well, but think of this recipe more as inspiration for cleaning out your own fridge.


Jambalaya
2 T coconut oil
1/2 lb andouille sausage, sliced
1 lb chicken, cut into chunks
1 red, yellow, and green pepper, roughly chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
pinch of saffron
1 t salt
1 t garlic powder
1 t black pepper
1/2 t cayenne
1 t oregano
1 t thyme
1 C Basmati rice
1 C wild rice
2 C water

Combine the oil, sausage, chicken, vegetables and spices and cook until the vegetables soften. Add the rice and cook for a few minutes. Add the water and simmer covered for 45 minutes. Enjoy!

This post is part of Hearth and Soul Blog Hop, Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday, Tuesday Night Supper Club, Tuesdays at the Table, Tasty Tuesday, Made from Scratch Tuesdays, Works-for-me-Wednesday, Frugal Fridays, and...

100th Post

This is the 100th post on City Share. This mile marker comes at an appropriate time because we are approaching a time of transition. All the posts thus far have been shaped by cooking and eating our way through our CSA share, but our summer share will end in a month. We are now researching some winter vegetable and meat shares (if you have any suggestions for NYC please let me know). Another change is that I have become motivated to not just keep eating local food, but to begin to incorporate more traditional foods into our diets. I have been inspired by Jenny at Nourished Kitchen and Ann Marie at Cheeseslave and many more. On top of these changes in our diets, we are going to move to Brooklyn next month. We are very excited to have found a lovely apartment with double the space of our current place.

To help me incorporate more traditional foods, I will be participating in Kelly the Kitchen Kop's e-class on Real Food for Rookies. The class has actually already started, but we have been busy lately so I'm just getting ready to begin on my own now. I will be sure to share my new found knowledge from her class.



In celebration of the 100th post, we have a delicious dinner to share with you. We had a flavorful grass-fed steak with sauteed leeks and mushrooms, a beet salad with yogurt dressing and green salad. Ahh, it was a fabulous treat dinner. The steak was delicious, the leeks and mushrooms were so good that we just kept eating them by the forkful before they even made it to the table, and the beet salad made my husband declare that "Beets are dirt candy."


Mushrooms and Leeks

1 T butter
2 leeks, the whites cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
3/4 lbs mushrooms, chopped (we used shitake and oyster)
1 T sage, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Heat a cast iron pan over medium heat and add butter. Once the butter is melted, add leeks and cook until translucent. Add mushrooms and sage and cook until the mushroom are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Delicious eaten straight or over chicken, beef, rice, or pretty much anything else.


Look at this beautiful selection of beets.


After they are fork tender, peel the beets with a spoon.


Combine the ingredients for a dressing.


We added the beets and some chopped up carrot tops (parsley would also work) to the dressing, and mixed to combine.

Beet Salad with Yogurt Dressing

5 beets, scrubbed
1 t dry dill
tops of 2 carrots, chopped
1/4 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 C yogurt
salt and pepper

Bring a small pot of water to a boil, and add the beets. Cook until a fork can easily pierce the beets. Remove from the water and let cool. Use a spoon to remove the skin (we sliced ours in half first for the photo). Chop into bite sized pieces. In a bowl, combine dill, carrot tops, onion, garlic and yogurt. Add the beets and stir to coat the beets with dressing. Chill for 30 minutes to let the flavors combine. Salt and pepper to taste.

Thanks to all of you for reading. I appreciate your feedback and comments.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, Works-for-Me-Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday, Ultimate Recipe Swap, Pennywise Platter Thursday, and Tasty Traditions.

Tomato Sauce

Our kitchen counter was starting to disappear. The tomatoes from our farm share were taking over the kitchen. Our efforts at putting fresh tomatoes in every dish imaginable was not keeping up with supply. It was time to take action. It was time to make sauce.

People are really passionate about their tomato sauce recipes. They will defend their method like their lives depended on it. I won't claim that this is the best way to make sauce. It's just one way to make it, and the method I chose this time around.

I can only remember making sauce from fresh tomatoes once before. It was years ago, and that time around I chose to ignore the directions to remove the skin and seeds from the tomatoes. I thought it seemed like a big hassle, and didn't believe it would make much difference in the flavor. The resulting sauce was really thin and low on flavor. It took me a long time to admit it, but I do think removing the peels and seeds makes a difference. Removing the seeds also removes the excess liquid which helps produce a thicker sauce.

This was my first time removing tomato skins. I have read about it in cookbooks and blogs, but had never tried it myself. They all assured me that it was a really easy process, but I was skeptical. You know what? They were right! It was a little messy, and it took a bit of time, but it was easy.


Core the tomatoes.


Score an "x" on the bottom of the tomato.


Carefully lower tomatoes into boiling water. When skins begin to split (30 to 60 seconds), use a slotted spoon to transfer tomatoes to ice water.


When tomatoes are cool, peel off the skins. Halve tomatoes. Remove seeds with a spoon, and discard. Finely chop tomatoes.


Saute some onions and garlic until softened. Add the tomatoes and cook the sauce for about 1.5 hours.


Here is the finished sauce.

Tomato Sauce

5 - 8 lbs tomatoes (we used a combination of heirloom and cherry tomatoes)
1/4 C olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, smashed
Coarse salt and ground pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and prepare a large bowl of ice water. With a paring knife, core tomatoes, and score an X on the bottoms. Carefully lower tomatoes into boiling water. When skins begin to split (30 to 60 seconds), use a slotted spoon to transfer tomatoes to ice water.

When tomatoes are cool, remove skins. Halve tomatoes. Remove seeds with a spoon, and discard. Finely chop tomatoes.

In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high. Add onion and garlic and cook until tender, stirring frequently (about 4 to 5 minutes). Add tomatoes, and stir to combine. Bring mixture to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low. Cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick and saucy, about 1 1/2 hours. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

We froze a jar of sauce, and set aside a bowl to use tonight.

Thank you to everyone that voted for me in Project Food Blog. The competition was stiff, and only 400 participants made it in to the next round out of 1,800. I am not in that group of 400, but I look forward to following the rest of the competition.

Composting

We are composting! Or, at least saving vegetable scraps to put in a compost bin. I always thought composting was out of our reach because we live in a small apartment without a yard or access to any dirt, but last Saturday we discovered otherwise. Our pick-up point for our CSA share moved to a community garden, and they have a compost system. Our CSA organizers pointed out we can bring in our vegetable scraps. They suggested putting the peels in the freezer for the week, and delivering them to the community garden when we pick up our share each Saturday. It was one of those moments when I felt silly that I hadn't thought of that myself. Of course! Freeze the scraps! Why didn't I think of that? At least we are composting now.

We are still getting in the habit of saving our vegetable peels, but we are getting better each day. It's great to see our garbage really decreasing in volume.


Tonight we had chicken baked with kohlrabi, turnips, onions and garlic with sides of beet greens and brown rice. Baked chicken is one of our favorite meals for cool weather because it is so versatile and forgiving. We placed a chicken in our Dutch oven, surrounded in by chopped vegetables, covered it, and baked it. Cook it for 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the size of your chicken.

Here's another post on Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables.

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade, Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challene Recipe Swap.

Brisket with Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

The weather suddenly feels like fall here in New York City. It's making me crave roasts and baked vegetable dishes. It's a great change of pace after spending a hot summer eating lots of salads and planning meals around cooking as little as possible. I thought I'd make another meal plan this week to make sure we eat up all our farm share vegetables.

Monday - Fresh ham baked with maple and mustard sauce, brown rice cooked in chicken stock, boiled corn, and sauteed kale.

Tuesday - Hamburgers with tomatoes, oven roasted beets, and sauteed beet greens.

Wednesday - Leftover ham, baked corn, and kale salad.

Thursday - Baked Chicken with kohlrabi and leeks, and a tomato salad.

Friday - Steak with fried onions, corn on the cob, tomato, radish and salad turnip salad.


Last night we had brisket with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I heated up some oil in my dutch oven, browned the brisket, and set it aside. I then quickly browned some onions and garlic, and added the rest of my ingredients. Once I had everything in the pot, my husband shared that he thought mashed potatoes would be really good with the meal. I had to agree that some mashed potatoes with gravy would be delicious, but I already had the potatoes stewing in the pot with everything else. But then we decided to try something new, we would cook the potatoes in the dutch oven with the brisket and broth soaking up flavor, and then pull them out after 30 minutes and mash them. It worked really well. We ended up with really flavorful potatoes, and only used one pot!

Brisket with Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
2 T oil
1 (2 1/2 lb) brisket, with "fat cap" (do not trim)
3 tablespoons sweet paprika
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus for brisket
Freshly ground black pepper
2 medium yellow onions, cut into thick slices
12 - 16 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 c cooking sherry
4 c chicken broth
2 T fresh sage, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled, and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 turnips, peeled and chopped
8 red potatoes, cut into large pieces
2 T butter
1/4 C flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until beginning to smoke. Season the brisket generously with the paprika, salt, and pepper. Place fat side down in the Dutch oven and cook until brown, turn and continue to brown on all sides, about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the meat to a plate and set aside.

Add the onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until starting to brown. Pour in the sherry and cook until reduced by about half. Nestle the brisket into the onions and garlic fat side up, add the broth and sage; bring to a simmer and place in the oven to bake, covered, until the brisket is fork tender, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Uncover, scatter the carrots, turnips and potatoes around the brisket and cook until they are tender, about 30 minutes more.

Fish out the potatoes, and place in a mixing bowl. Mash the potatoes with a fork or masher. Add broth from the brisket until they reach the desired consistency.

Transfer the brisket to a cutting board, thinly slice the meat across the grain.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables from the broth, and set aside to serve with dinner.

For a Pan Gravy: Melt the butter in a skillet and slowly add the flour. Make sure the four is entirely integrated with the butter before adding more flour. Cook until golden brown, and then starting adding broth ladle by ladle. Stirring until smooth, and then adding more broth. Once the gravy has reached the desired thickness, pour into the gravy boat.

Save the rest of the broth for another dish. We plan to use our for cooking rice this evening.

This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist and Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Mediterranean Salad

One of the great things about eating out is getting inspiration for dishes to make at home. Last weekend we had lunch at Miriam Restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I had a Mediterranean salad that was delicious. It was fresh and used seasonal ingredients. I promised myself that I would make it at home this week, and here it is. It was a great opportunity to use up some green, yellow, red and orange varieties of heirloom tomatoes. We had gotten some sorrel at the farmers' market. I had never used sorrel before, and it provided a great lemon taste to the salad. One regret: I didn't seed the tomatoes. After I had them chopped up, I wished I had. So I placed them in a small strainer to remove the excess liquid while I chopped the onions and cucumbers. I tried to recreate the look of the dish at Miriam with only moderate success. I just used my hands to form it when I really should have used a ring mold. Ring molds count as gadgets we do not have space for in our small kitchen, so the rustic look will have to do. We served our Mediterranean salad with some pan fried salmon, but it could be a meal on its own.







Mediterranean Salad
1 eggplant (or 4 very small eggplants in our case), thinly sliced
5 small tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1 medium English cucumber, finely chopped
16 oz chickpeas
2 T sorrel, finely chopped
feta
oil
sea salt

Heat a large skillet and add a drizzle of oil. Place eggplant in the pan and sprinkle with sea salt. Cook for 2 minutes on each side (or until tender). Cook batches of eggplant until it is all ready. While cooking, chop the rest of the vegetables. Combine the tomatoes, onion, cucumber, chickpeas and sorrel. Dish up the veggies, wrap in eggplant slices and sprinkle feta over the top.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursdays at GNOWFGLINS, Things I Love Thursday at Diaper Diaries, Tasty Traditions at Coupon Cooking, and Ultimate Recipe Swap at Life as Mom.

Liver and Onions with Collard Greens and Corn

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. We used our day off to explore a couple of neighborhoods in Queens. We continue to expand our horizons and consider new places to live. A couple of neighborhoods were really promising, but we haven't found an actual apartment we like yet.


Labor Day is often associated with cook-outs, grilled meat and all those great summer foods. We don't have a grill, so we had something more akin to a Sunday dinner (on Monday). We had liver and onions, collard greens and corn. I read about a technique in Mark Bittman's column a while back that recreates the taste of grilled corn without a grill. What you do is heat up a cast iron skillet, melt some butter, and pan fry the corn. It looked beautiful, but unfortunately tasted mushy and flavorless. I think our CSA farmers gave us cow corn! Oops! We each took a couple of bites, but couldn't finish it.

The rest of the meal was a huge success. We always like liver and onions. This time around it was bison liver. Here is my recipe. For the collard greens, I basically followed ChezSuzanne's recipe off of Food 52. My husband exclaimed, "These are the best collard greens that I have ever tasted!" and a few bites later "These are amazing." They are definitely worth a try. It includes garlic chips, bacon, and a butter and apple cider vinegar sauce- need I say more?


Here is a close up of the garlic chips and bacon bits awaiting their fate (That's a small plate).

This post is part of Two for Tuesdays at A Moderate Life, Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, and Tempt my Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables

I had an interesting walk from the subway to home. A cute new chocolate shop opened, and they were handing out samples. I tried a lemon caramel chocolate, which was good. A lot going on with the flavors, but I did choose lemon caramel chocolate. There were signs up and down the street warning drivers that parking was off limits because Happy Hour was filming. We see these signs a lot - last week they were filming White Collar. But this time they shut down Eight Mile Creek to film. I wonder what Happy Hour is? Next I saw a bike tour peddling toward me, and then lots of paparazzi and people taking cell phone photos of an Evian event. I admit that I had to take a peek through the window to see what all the fuss was about, and I saw a blond young woman. I just assumed she was a model and kept walking, but I just googled "Evian event NYC" to find out that it was Maria Sharapova. Google is amazing - it knows which celebrity I saw on my way home from work. Mind boggling! Last but not least, I noticed that the decorations for the Feast of San Gennaro are starting to go up. Soon we will have the equivalent of a county fair right outside our front door.

Once I got home, I found out my blog won an award from a fellow blogger, Cooking in Kenzo. I will write more about it in my next post, and get to pass it along to other blogs that I love.


It has finally cooled off this week in NYC, and we are getting some long overdue rain. On my way home from work yesterday, I decided that I wanted to have oven roasted chicken. It was finally cool enough to turn on the oven. Mmmm, it hit the spot. We cooked the chicken and vegetables all in the Dutch oven which made it a no fuss meal. All of the vegetables took on a great chickeny flavor.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables
1 medium chicken
1 onion, cut into good size chunks
1 small cabbage, sliced
2 carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse and dry the chicken. Add vegetables to the Dutch Oven, and place chicken on top. Cover it and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and turn up the heat to 425, and cook until the juices run clear (about 30 more minutes).

Oven roasted chicken is a gift that just keeps giving. We had salads with leftover chicken for dinner tonight, and now I have the bones in the crock pot making chicken stock.

Sausage and Peppers

When I got home from work today, I flipped on the TV and listened to a news program while I tried to figure out what to make for dinner. Have you noticed how they advertise the upcoming news segments with shocking titles? This one was something like, "What in your dining room is making you fat?" When they finally aired segment after several teasers, they reported that blue is the best color for plates, dining room walls, tablecloths, etc. Why? Because supposedly when people eat surrounded by the color blue, they eat less. The worst colors are yellow and red. One group of people ate dinner in a blue room and another in a yellow room, and the group in the blue room ate 30% less. I'm not sure about the quality of scientific research, but it's intriguing.

Have you noticed the color of our plates that play a supporting role in all of our food photos? They are mustard yellow! (They came with my husband. I like the style of them. The color, well, it is tolerable. The best thing about them is that they are almost indestructible.) Are we overeating every day because of our yellow plates? Maybe we should start using salad plates for dinner...


Last week, we had a hearty dinner served on salad plates. Sausage and peppers cooked with kale, tomatoes, onions and potatoes. I don't think I had ever made sausage and peppers with potatoes until I met my husband. He's Italian-American (among other things), and it's a family classic. His dad usually makes it with sausage, vinegar peppers and potatoes. It's FABULOUS! It's amazing how simple, classic meals are so good - no wonder they have stood the test of time. We added some extra veggies, and cooked it in our dutch oven on top of the stove. It was great - we got some oven fresh taste without heating up our apartment.

Sausage and Peppers with Kale, Tomato and Potatoes
1 lb Italian sausage, cut in half
1 lb potatoes, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 peppers, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 bunch kale,chopped
oil

Drizzle oil in the bottom of the Dutch oven. Add the rest of the ingredients, and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat stirring occasionally. Cook until the desired crispness is achieved, about 1 to 1.5 hours.

We served it on small plates because it is so filling.

This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist.

Pork Chops with White Wine and Mustard Sauce

Saturday night we prepared a feast, but by the time we polished off the eggplant caviar we were only hungry enough for a little taste of the meal. This worked out well because we were really hungry and tired by the time we came back from Oyster Bay yesterday, and there it was waiting for us.

These pork chops and sauce are an example of my husband's talents at work. They were served over a mix of red and white quinoa with sauteed onions and a white wine and mustard sauce. The unexpected ingredient is Old Bay. He sprinkled it over the chops before frying them. He is a huge Old Bay fan. Too much of it does something strange to my mouth, so he let me regulate how much was used. The results were fabulous. The flavors combined beautifully.

Pork Chops with White Wine and Mustard Sauce serves 2
2 pork chops
Old Bay
oil
1 large onion, sliced
1 scallion, sliced
1 T Dijon mustard
1/4 C white wine
1 T butter

Sprinkle each side of the pork chops with Old Bay to taste. Heat up a cast iron pan over medium high heat. Lightly oil the pan and place the chops in the pan. Cook on each side until browned. Add the onions to the pan. Place the chops on top of the onions, and cook until they are tender. When the onions are tender and the pork chops are cooked through, add the mustard, white wine and butter. Heat through and then serve.