The House of Cooking Part 4: Become a House of Cooking in Just Three Easy Steps!

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my days off work, and in addition to other chores it's when I get to do the majority of my cooking. Tuesday is also usually when our CSA box comes, but until it does the fridge often looks a little bare and empty, so sometimes coming up with something to make for D when she gets home from work on Tuesday is a challenge.


Still, it's an opportunity for me to be a little more inventive with my cooking. My opportunities to cook are rare, given that the rest of the week by the time I get home from work D has already prepared a lovely meal, and we all sit down to dinner and I get to try and eat my meal more quickly than my son can snatch it off my plate. It's a race I rarely win.

I honestly had no real ideas for today's lunch, however, D gave me a great idea and I ran with it. We had a prime rib steak in the freezer from one of our CSA meat deliveries, a zucchini in the fridge, and a couple of other odds and ends. With a couple of very good suggestions from D, I made the following recipe.

Jeremy's Quick Marinated Asian Inspired Steak and Zucchini Sandwiches with Home Fries

1 steak cut into strips (I used a prime rib we had, but any steak will do, or use two if you have 4 people to feed)
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper
1 tsp dried cayenne pepper flakes
1 tbsp prepared yellow mustard (or if you want, dijon... only used as an emulsifier)
1 zucchini, sliced
Several potatoes
2 Tbsp mayonnaise (or as my brother would demand, Miracle Whip, because it's better)
2 Tbsp ketchup (again, I personally cannot stand any ketchup but Heinz... but your choice)
A splash or two of chipotle tabasco sauce
Several Kaiser Buns

Start by marinating the meat. Combine the vinegar, olive oil, sesame oil, ginger, soy sauce, worcestershire, as much or as little salt and pepper as you desire, the pepper flakes and the yellow mustard in a Ziploc bag (I'm aiming to become Ziploc's schill) and smoosh (that's a word, mom) it up into a semi-homogeneous mix. Dump in the steak slices and seal the bag,then smoosh it again until the meat is thoroughly covered in sauce. Toss it in the fridge for an hour, turning it and smooshing it again once or twice.

Slice the zucchini into coins, as I did, or into lengthwise strips, as D suggested I do. Set aside.

Take the potatoes, cut them into whatever shape you like, cubes or fries or quarters... doesn't really matter. You're making fries. Place the potatoes on a greased baking sheet, throw some salt at them, and maybe drizzle a bit of olive oil over top. Preheat oven to 375 farenheit and put the potatoes in. Toss the fries about halfway through the process. Roast them for 45 minutes to an hour.

Combine mayonnaise, ketchup, a little bit of salt and pepper and a little bit of chipotle tabasco (taking care to be judicious with the tabasco and consider the spice sensitivity of whomever you are cooking for) and mix them in a small bowl.

I use a George Foreman Grill to grill my veggies, typically, so following the directions for that device, grill the zucchini. If you don't have one, then take a frying pan and heat it to medium high heat, then sear the zucchini on both sides for maybe 5-7 minutes total. Then you can use the same pan for the meat.

When the meat is done marinating, throw a frying pan on the stove on medium high heat, add the steak strips to the pan and cook for about 10 minutes, turning the meat with a pair of tongs about halfway through the cooking process.

Assemble sandwiches as you desire, adding any other condiments you might like. Serve sandwiches and fries together on plate. I spread the chipotle mayonnaise on both top and bottom halves of my buns, but not everyone will want to be that greedy.

As well, I feel like this recipe would go nicely with red onion, or even slices of orange. I'll have to try those another day and see how it is.

The House of Cooking, Part 3: Dawn of The House of Cooking

This post is mainly going to be about how to put slightly obscure or otherwise unwelcome ingredients to work in a way that is flavourful and enjoyable, because putting everything from our CSA box to good use can sometimes be challenging. But I'll be damned if I'll let it beat me. We're going to use everything we get from that box if it kills us. That's only a dim possibility, and only if one of the boxes comes with cyanide pills. So I'm pretty safe.

Please don't include cyanide in my next box. Thanks.

In one of our recent boxes we received Fennel. D hates fennel, or anise as it's otherwise known, or anything licorice flavoured. This meant the challenge of figuring out how to make the fennel to her liking was up to me. This ended up being surprisingly easy. All I did was saute it in butter with a bit of salt and pepper, some of our ubiquitous garlic scapes, and after about 5 minutes threw in some mushrooms and taragon and let that saute for another five minutes. I say that on the understanding that I threw in whole mushrooms because I was lazy and didn't want to chop them but because of this laziness the mushrooms were a little underdone, so I would recommend slicing or shopping them and then the cooking time noted above should be fine.

Prepping the fennel is easy. Just cut off the hard root end and the stalks, and then quarter it vertically (stalk end to root) and then slice the resulting quarters.

The reason this preparation worked for D is because the cooking process sweetens the fennel, and the simple spices serve to mute the very strong licorice flavour of the fennel that might otherwise bother her. The taragon especially helped. If you want a more detailed recipe, ask me in comments and I'll post one.

Another challenge we occasionally have is kale. Kale is tough to use, because you get a huge amount of it and really, who uses kale except for the manufacturers of V8? One of our CSA boxes had a head of kale in it a couple of months back and we were at a loss with what to do with it until D, I think partially in frustration, made it into soup.

I am not normally a big soup fan. This has nothing to do with D's inherent distrust of salt and pepper, nothing at all. I do not make soup as a general rule, so the soup that is made is made by D. It's usually quite nice but soup just doesn't usually float my boat unless it's exceptionally rich. D is not prone to making rich soups, which is fine.

However, the soup she made with the kale was hands down one of the best soups I've ever eaten. She will agree that the speed at which I consumed that particular soup exceeds by an order of magnitude the speed at which I have consumed any and all previous soups combined, over the course of our nine years together. What I mean, to be clear, is that there are probably still hiding in our freezer soups made near the start of our relationship that remain unconsumed. This soup didn't last long enough to even smell the freezer. Because we just got another head of kale in yesterday's box, I have just today tried to replicate her accomplishment, with some success, and I'll put my recipe below, but given it's still on the stove I don't have a final verdict for you. It is, however, shaping up to be very nice.

Note, however, that the base of the soup is broth made from the bones of my chicken recipe on my last post. You could probably use stock from the store, but why not use leftovers where you can instead? There's a richness of flavour that comes from homemade broth that's hard to get from store bought. Plus, making my chicken recipe means you get to EAT my chicken, which is great, and then you can have chicken sandwiches and soup for lunch for the rest of the week. That's what we call, in the industry, win-win.

D and Jeremy's "Mostly Jeremy's Recipe for Kale and Legume Soup" Recipe

6 cups of chicken broth (preferably home made)
1 head of kale
1 can of romano beans, drained
1 can of black beans, drained
1 can of chopped or crushed tomatoes (or even whole tomatoes, but then chop them in can)
1 cup of lentils
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp organo
1 tbsp rubbed basil
(optional) 1-2 cups chopped cooked chicken leftovers (optional, but easy to do if you made my chicken recipe first and have leftovers)

Recipe is simple. First chop the kale across the ribs, making thin strips about 1/2 inch across. Then bring the broth to a boil in a stock pot (the pot I used was WAY too small) and reduce temperature to medium. Add all the ingredients, cook for 15 minutes on medium, stirring occasionally, then reduce temperature to a simmer and continue simmering for an hour or so. Remove from heat, serve.

D is about to try the soup. Will have a verdict soon.

The House of Cooking Part 2: In The House of Cooking's Studio

I could never be a vegetarian for one simple reason: I like meat. Sure, I've heard a billion (literally. I've counted.) reasons to not eat meat. Not one has convinced me. Because I can give you two reasons why I eat meat that trump all arguments to the contrary.

Both those reasons are called incisor.

Herbivores don't have them. They are designed to cleave meat, sever tendons, carve flesh from bone and generally wreak havok on stuff that has blood inside. Animals that only eat plants are not equipped with them. Most of our success as a species can be attributed to the fact that we basically spent most of our history looking at the world and saying "NOM!" Hell, Cajun cooking is basically centred around making a stew by tossing a net into the swamp and cooking anything that wriggles. The fact that we are omnivorous is I would argue a substantial part of  who we are, as human beings. I don't have a problem with anyone who chooses not to eat meat, because hey, more meat for me, but I don't think it makes sense to omit it from our diet.

That said, I would like to discuss chicken. What? No Seque? Nope. I'm going to buck that tradition. See what I did there?

Chicken is a great meat. Unlike a lot of other things that taste like chicken, it IS chicken, so it simply tastes, I suppose. Possibly it tastes like itself. Regardless, it's good.

For the longest time I did very little when it came to prepping chicken. For a stir fry I cut it into cubes or slices and just cooked it. I baked or seared chicken breasts either plain in the frying pan or with maybe a mustard sauce of some kind. But no matter what, chicken always tasted to me dreadfully dry, and I don't think I realized how much so until I finally, finally tried my hand at brining.

Very simply, when you brine a chicken you infuse the meat with moisture, not to mention salty goodness (which is always a good fit for chicken). I could probably explain the chemistry behind it but I think it's unnecessary. Just do it. Brine your chicken. If you don't know how, pick up "The Joy of Cooking" and learn how. I'll give you a recipe below that tells you how I brine my chicken, but I typically cook chicken whole so my recipe won't work necessarily for smaller portions like breasts, thighs, and drumsticks, but the basics are there. You can probably reduce the proportions in my recipe for smaller portions of chicken, but really, if you don't already OWN "The Joy of Cooking" then you need to get it. It's about as important as owning forks.

Anyway, the added moisture and salt means that after cooking you don't end up with that dry, cloying, cling to the roof of your mouth, fibrous, wash it down with a splash of chardonnay thing that chicken sometimes does when it isn't brined. You know what I mean. When you take a bite of chicken, screw up your face and make a "ngyah ngyah" sound while you try and scrape the Gobi desert from your soft palate with the cracked ruin that used to be your tongue. That's what brining stops. Plus it's delicious. Did I mention chicken needs salt? I did. Chicken needs salt. Brining gives it salt.

Now, if you really want to play with your food, then brine your chicken first, drain it, and then use a dry rub and THEN bake or barbecue it. That's what I do and I have never once failed in being showered with comments about the perfection that is my chicken. I'll share with you my recipe. Most of it is dead simple, but the results should leave your guests wondering how you pulled it off.


Jeremy's "Couldn't Think of a Clever Name For It" Brined Roast Chicken
As mentioned earlier, this recipe is for a whole chicken. You could try and cut the proportions down for smaller portions of chicken, and definitely leave your chicken in the brine for a shorter time if using say, half a dozen chicken drumsticks instead of a whole chicken (as a general rule, 1 hour/lb is a good time) but why not do the whole chicken anyway? Not only do you end up with chicken sandwiches for later in the week, but if you have a spouse like D who won't even let bones go to waste she can render those bones and fat down into a nice broth that you can use later to grease the bearings on your car or, I dunno, make soup or something. Plus, making a whole chicken means you get to whack that thing down on the table at the neighborhood barbecue and say: "I made a whole chicken, suckahs! Eat it! Literally. That's why I made it. So it could be, you know, eaten."
Anyhow, here's the recipe. A bit of forewarning: I mentioned in my last post that I am not predisposed towards measuring. This is especially true for my rubs. The rub recipe below is a guideline only. Feel free to modify the proportions to your heart's content because I rarely make the same rub twice. That's half the fun.

1 whole chicken, 3-4 lbs
Brine
1 cup of coarse salt
A bagful of water (I will explain this in detail in a moment
Dry Rub
1-2 tbsp salt and the same of black pepper
1-2 tbsp lemon-garlic seasoning (if you can't find it, equal portions citric acid and garlic powder will likely make do)
2 tsp dry mustard
1 tbsp rubbed basil
2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (be very careful with your cayenne. A little goes a LONG way)

Okay, so to begin there's usually all these instructions when brining on using non-reactive cookware and making sure the chicken is fully submerged or weighted or what have you. I'm going to make it simple. I brine my chicken, and I'm going to product plug here because they are perfect for the job, in Ziploc Double Zipper Heavy Duty LARGE Freezer Bags. I do so thusly: Take one of the bags, set it in a flat bottomed dish primarily to keep it from toppling over and spilling out all its contents once it's filled with water. Begin filling with cold water. Slowly add your cup of salt to the water as you fill, stirring it in as best you can. Your best will not be perfect and you will still end up with salt crystals at the bottom. Ignore this fact. Once the bag is about halfway full you should be done adding the salt. At this point insert chicken and continue filling the bag with water. When you have about 3 inches of air left at the top of the bag SLOW DOWN on adding water but do not stop. Instead, start sealing the bag. As the remaining three inches of space fill with water continue sealing the bag, until when you finally seal the other corner you actually end up squeezing some of the water out of your now completely full bag of briney goodness.
Congratulations, you now have a fully submerged bird that requires no weighting to keep it below the surface, no turning over while it brines, is successfully contained within non-reactive cookware. And all you had to do was fill a bag with water. I will accept applause.

Now stick it in the fridge for 4 hours and just let it rip. If you want to make your rub, now's the time.

To make the rub, take the ingredients listed under "Dry Rub" and mix them together in a pinch pot or appropriately sized small bowl. Yup.

Once four hours have passed you can prep the chicken for roasting. This is the hard part. It's also easy.

Remove chicken from brine. Do whatever you want to drain the bird (holding it over the sink for a couple of minutes works) and get rid of the brine. I really don't think there's anything that can be done with leftover brine. I don't suggest finding out. Now place the bird on a cutting board or large plate and rub it with the rub. Get the rub into all the nooks and crannies, or crooks and nannies as I used to call them, and don't be shy. Rub it like you mean it. Rub it like you hope it has a happy ending. Don't forget the inner cavity. Get some rubbing done in there too. It can only help. Once as much bird as can possibly be covered in rub is covered, or you've done your best and you're out of rub, only then can you stop rubbing.

If using the oven, as I typically do, preheat to 450 Farenheit. Put the chicken in a suitable roasting pan, I prefer uncovered personally so that the rub bakes right in, and place the whole monster on the bottom rack. Immediately reduce the temperature to 350 Farenheit (this seals the flavour in because of the initial high heat but ensures that the meat is cooked thoroughly at a lower temperature over a longer time without burning). Cook 20-30 minutes per pound until the internal temperature reaches 160-170 Farenheit, basting periodically. Even if you forget to baste it should still end up fairly moist, but basting can be fun in and of itself because you get to open the oven, smell your beautifully roasting chicken and just drink in the flavours through your nose. It's visceral and fantastic and one of the best experiences cooking has to offer.

If you use a barbecue, I recommend indirect heat if you have the option. I use a 3 burner grill and I turn on the two outside burners to medium or medium-high heat and place the chicken on the centre rack, preferably on a roasting stand such as one you would use to make beer butt chicken but without the beer, unless you wanted to give that a whirl at the same time. Same cooking times and stipulations on internal temperature apply but you'll need to take more care to make sure dripping fat doesn't set your bird to scorching. Just keep an eye on it.

Carve and serve. Or do as I do and have your spouse (who you secretly know does a better job than you do at it but you give the excuse that you cooked the meat so she gets to serve it up) carve the meat and serve. I'll probably post next time some vegetable dishes or side dishes that I think might nicely compliment this chicken, but frankly I'm out of steam tonight.

Try it and enjoy, however. And let me know if you do. Enjoy it, I mean. If you don't enjoy it keep it to yourself. I don't need the bad press.

Ah hell, any press will do.

The House of Cooking, Part 1: Journey to the Centre of the House of Cooking

So it's been a while since I last posted. That's mainly laziness and sloth and procrastination. Did I mention sloth? Okay, things were also busy with vacation and my son turning two and housework and everything, but I'm sure I could have squeezed in a post here and there. However, I weighed my activity options for my free time and opted to instead watch cooking shows and occasionally play computer games.

I mention the cooking shows because, as you may have noticed from the title of this post, this is not going to be a House of Grammar post. (shock and dismay!!!) I figured I'd take some time to talk about garlic scapes.

I'll give you some background. D and I signed up earlier this year to be part of a CSA. We pay a monthly amount for a share in a local farm and receive weekly boxes of produce (with meat bi-weekly) locally grown and organic. However, we of course have no choice in what we receive, only in what sort of volume we get based on the price we pay for our share, and in what categories of produce we receive. Currently we are getting what is called an "appetizer" box of vegetables and the same of fruit. But what actually comes in the box each week is a surprise. It's sort of like our own Masterchef mystery box challenge.

Now, the surprise is great. In the spring, of course, we were deluged with turnip, cabbage, and potatoes, as well as carrots, apples and the occasional preserve. D and I had to be very creative to make turnip and cabbage interesting for about 2 months, but we managed. Turnip fries, scalloped turnips in cream of mushroom soup, cabbage rolls, coleslaw, an abortive attempt at fermented sauerkraut (I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but 2 batches of sauerkraut have developed mold on me without even starting fermentation) soups, stews, stir fries with cabbage leaves... the list goes on. We are now very comfortable with turnip and cabbage and never want to set eyes on it again.

Recently, however, we have been receiving a high volume of garlic scapes. For those who don't know, garlic scapes are apparently the stems of garlic bulbs that farmers trim this time of year to allow the garlic bulbs to grow larger. Apparently someone discovered they too have a strong garlic flavour and are easy to cook and prepare, so it's become another seasonal product you can get your hands on. Garlic scapes look horrific, in the truest sense of the word, especially when bunched together.

They are springy, green, grasping tentacles that look like they've been severed from the beard of cthulu. Despite their appearance, they are delicious. They are very much like green onion in terms of consistency when chopped, are easy to saute in butter and you can use them in place of fresh garlic for a lot of recipes. I was originally at a loss with what to do with them, especially given how many we have received, but D and I have come up with a couple of recipes that have been quite good. I'll share D's recipe first, as much of it as I know, since she made it when I wasn't around and I'm having to reverse engineer it a bit from what I remember of our discussion when planning the recipe, but I hope I hit all the points. I'm sure she will correct me if not.

There are, I will point out, a number of recipes out there for garlic scape pesto if you care to look. Also sounds quite good. I haven't made any yet but I plan to. I'm also planning to try my hand at some Lebanese food and I think garlic scapes might fit in nicely.

Oh, and if my recipe format is wrong, imagine me making a rude gesture when you think of scoffing.

Garlic Scape, White Bean, Asiago and Artichoke Dip
This dip is smooth and creamy and pairs well with tortilla chips for a snack. We have recently discovered that it can be added to great effect to macaroni and cheese to kick up the flavour.

1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and rinsed (if you want to use fresh artichoke hearts, go right ahead, but that's on you)
X number of garlic scapes, finely chopped, where X=the number of garlic scapes you want to get rid of
As much asiago as you like. I like Asiago, preferably fresh, but I would just get a brick and grate it until I felt like I had enough. (If you can't tell, I don't really measure ingredients. "To taste" is my watchword)
1-2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper (D probably did not use either salt or pepper. They are anathema to her)
A couple capfuls of lemon juice

Dump the whole lot in a blender or food processor and run the bastard until the resulting mixture is smooth. Serve.

Shepherd's Pie with Garlic Scape and Asiago Mashed Potato Crust
This will probably not be considered a "shepherd's" pie by those who like to nitpick the provenance and categorization of pie. But it's my recipe, so it's a goddamned shepherd's pie. That introduction out of the way, this pie is rich and flavourful and the mashed potatoes are actually a joy to eat rather than sort of a dry cake to hold in the sauce. I will warn you, as a man, I make a lot of dishes when cooking. If you can think of a way to use fewer dishes, go right ahead. Your spouse will thank you.

2 cups of finely chopped lamb meat (not ground) from a cheap or on sale cut of lamb... don't use expensive lamb meat on a recipe like this, as it's just a shame. I used leg of lamb steaks that I bought for like 4 bucks each.
2 large or 4 small potatoes
1 cup of finely shopped garlic scapes
1 can of corn niblets
1 can of peas and carrots
1 white onion, finely chopped, your choice whether sweet onion like vidalia or not. Though I didn't actually have any onions on hand when I made this recipe, I would have liked to.
1-2 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tsp celery salt
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
3/4 cup beef broth
1-2 tsp dried or fresh thyme
1-2 tsp dried or fresh rosemary
A pinch of ground nutmeg
2-4 tbsp sour cream
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt to taste
White pepper to taste
Asiago. Remember what I said about Asiago above? The same applies here.

First, get a pot of cold water on the stove and put in your potatoes. Throw it on medium heat and leave it to come to a boil and then let it boil for 10-15 minutes. That should be done first because frankly, you then have time to just let that happen while you get everything else ready.

Now, take the butter and melt it in a small skillet, add your garlic scapes and give them a quick saute. Remove from heat.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet on medium high heat and add the chopped onion, saute it for a couple minutes before adding the chopped lamb. Brown the lamb. Then stir in the flour and cook it for another couple of minutes before adding the beef broth, nutmeg, thyme, rosemary and a bit of salt and black pepper. Reduce the heat to low and stir occasionally until sauce thickens (about 5 minutes or so).

Take the meat and onion mixture and transfer it to a medium sized sauce pot on medium heat. Add the corn, peas and carrots, throw some celery salt at it and let it cook for a few more minutes.

By this time, if not before, your potatoes should be ready to mash. Reserve 1/4 cup of the potato water (sounds appetizing) and drain off the rest, then mash the potatoes (do I really need to explain how?) and add the sauteed garlic scapes (with the butter they were cooked in, please), sour cream, asiago, the potato water you reserved, some salt and white pepper. Mix this until creamy and smooth.

Now assemble the pie and throw it in the oven at 425 farenheit for about 15 minutes.

I have to explain that in more depth?

Okay, find an appropriately sized ceramic dish, insert meat and veggie mixture to about halfway up, settle the meat mixture by agitating the dish ("You're an inadequate piece of cookware! I slept with your wife!"... dishes are surprisingly easy to agitate) and then spread the potatoes over the top taking great care to not do what I did and mix the meat into the potatoes in some places, making for a bit of an ugly liver-spotted mess for my crust. Once potatoes evenly cover the meat, throw the grated cheese down on top as artfully as you desire and THEN pop it in the oven at 425 for about 15 minutes, or until crust is as crusty as you desire.

There you go. See the number of dishes? Insane. But worth it.