Here's my version of a traditional central Italian "midnight snack" pasta:

• Cook spaghetti until toothily al dente, then tossing with a little olive oil after it has been rinsed off and transferred to a bowl
• While the pasta is cooking, begin simmering anchovies -- I used two standard-sized cans -- in olive oil
• Add crushed red pepper and garlic to taste
• As the mixture starts to thicken to the point of not sliding easily across the bottom of the man, add a little white wine to deglaze it, turning down the heat until the sauce is barely bubbling
• Toss in a few handfuls of raisins and about half as many capers
• Add the juice of two lemons
• As the sauce thickens to the consistency you desire, grate pecorino romano cheese
• Once everything is done, sprinkle the cheese over the pasta liberally, then toss with the anchovy-raisin-caper sauce
• Try not to eat as much as I did tonight

Although the combination of salty, sweet and sour flavors might not seem like a good match for the cheese to some, I was overwhelmed by the heady savor of the combination.

Tags: everyday, food, recipe
Current Location: 85704
Muse: a memory of the aria from La Wally that is featured in Diva

I made the following rice dish to accompany lamb chops last night. I think it falls into the pilaf category. Even if it doesn't technically fit, though, the results are similar. Please note that I used a rice cooker with a removable aluminum pot. The recipe would change if you were using a different rice-making technique, though not the ingredients. Besides, everyone should have a rice cooker: they save time and stovetop space:

• Coat the bottom of the rice cooker's pot with olive oil and place it on a stovetop burner at the lowest possible setting
• Add liberal portions of chopped cilantro and garlic (I used the redoubtable Israeli frozen cubes of each that Trader Joe's sells, in order to save time)
• Stir and add crushed red pepper and cumin
• Turn off the heat and add the rice you have measured out to the pot
• Mix the contents of the pot until the cilantro is evenly distributed and every grain of rice is coated with a sheen of oil
• Chop some lightly salted cashews until they are the consistency of the sprinkle topping on an ice-cream sundae
• Add the cashew pieces to the pot and mix thoroughly
• Add a few handfuls of raisins to the pot and mix them in as well
• Add the water you would normally use for that amount of rice (i.e. don't add extra water) or perhaps eve reduce the amount very slightly
• Cook the rice in the rice cooker and enjoy the delicious aroma coming from the pot
• When the rice is done, spoon it out onto a plate and mix in pieces of crumbled feta to taste
• Serve lamb chops over top of the rice with a little mint jelly and perhaps a few pieces of fresh mint as well
• Bask in the gustatory goodness

I think this may be my best rice concoction yet. Cashews were an inspired choice, if I do say so myself. Please note that the salt that they and the crumbled feta provide takes the place of any salt you would otherwise add to the dish.

Tags: everyday, food, recipe
Current Location: 85704
Muse: Amphetamine - Rocket From The Tombs - The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from

Last night I made barbecue. I didn't have time to make a sauce from scratch, so I decided to "hack" a store-bought source and use up a number of almost-empty items in the pantry. The result was pretty tasty and felt almost homemade. Here's the recipe:

• Empty two containers of Kansas City-style -- thick and sweet -- barbecue sauce into a saucepan and turn on the heat to medium. I used Trader Joe's "Natural Barbecue Sauce."
• Add a shot glass -- or two -- of scotch, bourbon or other hard liquor of the "brown" sort. I used one of Seagram's and one of Applejack, which had been biding time in our store of supplies since a Thanksgiving dinner back in the early 1990s.
• Add a can of tomato sauce.
• Add the equivalent of six garlic cloves. I used the Israeli frozen cubes from Trader Joe's.
• Add a tablespoon of vinegar. I used apple cider vinegar.
• Add two tablespoons of a liquid sweetener, such as molasses or honey. I used this neat product I found at Trader Joe's last night, Blue Agave nectar.
• Add a teaspoon of soy sauce.
• Add a teaspoon of Tabasco sauce or equivalent.
• Add more red chiles to taste. I used this thick Thai-style chile sauce that Trader Joe's is presently selling, which gets its viscosity from tapioca. It worked great, because it didn't need to be reduced.
• Add the juice of one lemon.
• Slice two or three more lemons so that there are four slices per lemon. Put the slices into the sauce.
• Simmer until the liquor has given up its alcohol and the sauce has the density you desire.

The best thing about this sauce is that it really clung to the ____ I was grilling. Maybe the tapioca in the chile sauce helped. But it was like barbecue napalm.

Tags: food, recipe
Current Location: 85704
Muse: the sound of Thing Two in the cat box

I just finished eating my portion of what turned into a delicious -- and easy -- dish, invented this evening while I unsuccessfully tried various spells to make the kitchen floor clean itself:

• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (or whatever the equivalent is in more ten-centric places)
• Get out a relatively deep oven-safe dish with a lid, such as a Le Creuset cassarole or, for the more impecunious, one of the larger white Corningware products
• Cut up two onions and place in the bottom of the dish
• Peel and section four or five tangerines and add to the dish
• Add a goodly number of raisins to the dish as well
• Dust liberally with cumin and lightly with "sweet" spices such as mace, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg
• Add ground red pepper according to your preference
• Splash with white wine, taking care not add too much liquid
• Add a few drops of almond extract, if you have it, or perhaps some amaretto or another nut-based liqueur; I did the former myself
• Mix everything in the dish together as evenly as possible
• Arrange the pieces of a cut-up chicken over top of the mixture
• Cut two lemons in half, squeeze about half of their juice over the chicken pieces and their bed, then place the four lemon halves upright inside the dish, spaced evenly apart
• When the oven is preheated, place the dish in the oven -- leaving the lid off -- and turn it down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
• Cook for approximately twenty-five minutes per pound of chicken
• Meanwhile, prepare a rice dish. I used a rice cooker and a mixture of white, brown and wild rice, which went very well with the main course
• When the chicken is done -- the innermost portion of the breast should register 180 degrees Fahrenheit on a meat thermometer -- turn the oven off and place the cover on the dish
• Let the chicken gently "stew" for another twenty to thirty minutes in the still warm, but turned-off oven
• Remove from the oven and serve
• Be sure to scoop liquid from the bottom of the dish, as well as the tangerines-onions-and-raisins mixture, and spread over top of the rice
• Say "Mmmmmmm" as you consume the dish and, if you want, send me a psychic murmur of thanks

This recipe is good enough that composing this entry made me crave seconds, even though I'm full. And perhaps even thirds!

Tags: everyday, food, recipe
Current Location: 85704
Muse: the thrum of Tartit in my memory banks

For dinner I decided to use the cooked lentils I'd set aside after making my staple spinach-ginger-chile Indian lentil dish on the night of the Oscars. They were just about to turn, but were all the tastier for the slight ferment that had set in.

I coarsely chopped the slightly desiccated half of a yellow onion that had been left in a baggie in the vegetable drawer, together with a few red onion slices from the other night's cheeseburgers and sauteed them in olive oil, adding thin slices of the now-earthy-tasting carrots remaining out in the garage from my last pot roast.

When the onions were translucent and the carrot discs soft, I added a healthy dose of cumin, some dried red pepper, plenty of paprika, a teaspoon full of "better than bouillon" condensed beef stock and turned the heat to low. At that point, I threw in first one bag of baby spinach leaves and then the other, once the first had shriveled, together with eight frozen garlic cubes of the TJ's variety.

Once all the spinach had lost its stiffness, I added two cans of the organic tomatoes TJ sells and turned the heat up to medium. I cut up the pieces of chicken left from Skylar's salad on Sunday and added them as well. Then I dumped in the lentils and, following my nose, some extra cumin and a bunch of dried oregano.

After ten minutes or so, I squeezed the juice from two lemons into the pot and, once again turning the heat down, let everything cook for another ten minutes or so. I served it over white rice. The result was delectable and a great way to redeem food that would otherwise have gone in the trash.

Tags: everyday, food, recipe
Current Location: 85704

I picked up a boneless chuck roast a few days before my weekend trip and realized, upon returning, that I needed to cook it today or tomorrow. So I poked around in the fridge -- and garage -- this afternoon and found the ingredients to get started. The finished product is delicious, if I do say so myself, so I'll share the recipe with you:

• Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Cut the meat into pieces that will fit comfortably inside your oven-safe cookware.
• Brown them in a little olive oil inside a cast iron pan, being sure not to do too many at a time, as they need room to brown properly.
• Set them aside on a dish once they are browned.
• Do not wash out the frying pan; you'll need its residue later.
• Meanwhile, as you are browning the meat, make a soffritto by hand or, to make things easier, in a mechanical chopper.
• For mine, I used a few carrots and parnsips, left over from a previous pot roast, two habañero chiles, and a lone Yukon Gold potato. Chop fine.
• Cut up a few onions and, if you have celery, a few stalks.
• Lay the onion and celery pieces on the bottom of the aforementioned oven-safe cookware. I used two round Corningware dishes, the classic sort with see-through glass lids.
• Disperse half the soffritto over the onion and celery pieces.
• Add fresh herbs as desired. My preference is to foreground one herb, rather than use a bunch together. And I also try to use fresh ones. In this case, I used the leftover rosemary from a recent chicken roasting. I placed two stems in each pot.
• Array the browned pieces of meat over top of the onion-celery-and-soffritto base.
• Disperse the rest of the soffritto over top of the meat.
• Wedge sliced mushrooms in the space between the pieces of meat and the edge of the dishes and then add the remainder over top of the meat, leaving enough room to add liquid without spilling over the edges.
• Turn the frying pan back on and deglaze it with red wine.
• Pour the contents of the pan over everything, making sure to use an equal amount of liquid in each dish if you are using more than one.
• If there's still room for a little liquid, you can add a bit more to the frying pan and heat that, then pour that over top as well.
• Cover the dish or dishes and place in the oven, which will be pre-heated by now.
• Cook for several hours, until at least half of the liquid has cooked off and the pieces of meat fall apart easily at the prodding of a fork.
• While the meat is in the oven, you should make its carbohydrate complement. In my case, I cooked farfalle -- "bow-tie" pasta -- until al dente, then tossed them in a bowl with a little olive oil. I also grated pecorino romano cheese to sprinkle over the cooked pasta, since parmesan, real or virtual, wouldn't be strong enough to stand out against the spicy pot roast.
• Serve, ideally, with a robust red wine or mineral water.

I ended up taking the dishes out a little prematurely tonight, due to collective hunger, but the meat was already very good. I put the dishes back in a while longer and made sure to get every drop of the liquid left on the plate after finishing the not-quite-tender meat. Mmmmmm.

Tags: everyday, food, recipe
Current Location: 85704

I did a little experimenting in the kitchen this evening. Since the main ingredient in the end result was meat, I will put the recipe behind the cut. It's a good recipe and easy-to-prepare, if you like that sort of thing.

( Read the recipe. )

Tags: everyday, food, recipe
Current Location: 85704

I learned something useful last night. Although sweet potatoes come out best when slow-roasted in a conventional oven, they are surprisingly good when cooked in the microwave. They don't get quite as smoothly soft on the inside in the latter case, but the taste is excellent. And they cook in ten minutes or less.

The reason I made this discovery is that I decided sweet potatoes would be the perfect complement to a dish I was making, but didn't have time to put them in the oven for an hour. Now I will tell you about that dish. But I'm putting the particulars behind the cut because I don't want to offend those of you who avoid certain foods for religious or ethical reasons. So if you keep kosher or are a vegetarian, you may want to stop reading here.

( Read the recipe. )

Tags: food, how-to, recipe
Current Location: 85704

In an effort to reign in spending and reduce the amount we waste, I've been trying to do a better job of eating what we already have instead of buying new comestibles or going out. Sometimes, though, what we have is not in optimal condition. For example, we had some TJ's greens that, while not hopelessly slimy, were well on their way to lassitude.

In the summer I'd put them out for the tortoises. At this time of year, though, I would once have simply tossed them out. I mean, who wants uncrisp lettuce? But then it struck me. Why not treat the greens the same way that I'd treat "real" greens of the Southern sort?

I washed them off, sorted out the leaves that were too far gone, and heated them in a non-stick pan until they were reduced to a heap of limpness. Then I got out the cast-iron pan and started heating it on low. I then tossed in a cut-up onion and two turkey andouille sausages sliced into rounds, waited until the edges of the onion pieces started to brown, added a little olive oil and a couple frozen Israeli garlic cubes -- also from TJ's -- and simmered the mixture until the onion pieces started to separate into transparent scallops.

At this point, I poured in a little white wine to deglaze the pan, then let most of the liquid evaporate before adding the greens. While the cast-iron pan continued simmering, I used the non-stick pan to fry up some sunny-side up eggs. When the yolks were firm enough on top to permit me to transfer the eggs to my plate without having the still runny interior spill out, I scooped the greens-sausage-and-onion mixture out of the cast-iron pan and slid the eggs on top.

The result was much better than I'd expected. And I was expecting the dish to be pretty good based on smell alone. The greens had enough residual bitterness to taste like "real" greens. The andouille and onions were the perfect flavor partners. And the yolks, once punctured, seeped into the bed of dark pseudo-Southern goodness with aplomb. Total cost? About $5. But when you figure that I would have thrown the greens out otherwise, it feels like a bigger savings.

Tags: everyday, food, how-to, recipe
Mode: cast-irony
Muse: a disturbing recurrence of a Stooges song