for radiant skin and humility

No.  But you will have less fun and lack a sense of self-satisfaction.  We are hardcore dairy consumers in our house, and it’s true that  I’ve never had a soymilk  I enjoyed, but almonds! Oh, almonds are delicious!  As is their milk.  And surprisingly easy to make.  It’s true that store bought almond milks have guar gum (a thickening agent) added and probably traces of BPA from the packaging–but I really don’t care about that no matter how much the internet tells me to.  The real benefit for me (besides its tastiness superiority) is that making your own almond milk at home lets you control the amount of water in use, enabling you to make a thicker, creamier milk that is particularly awesome as a coffee creamer.

For this you will need:

raw almonds

water

a blender*

cheesecloth, or something similar

a wire sieve or coffee filter

*Gear disclaimer: I don’t actually use a blender here.  The only blender I own is an immersion blender which, while brilliant for soups, lacks the chutzpah necessary for this job.  And since I make it in such small batches, I use my food processor.  It’s messier, since the lid is not water-tight, but it does the job rather well.

Start by soaking your almonds in water overnight (or at least 6 hours).  When we start the making, you will have a 3 to 1 water to almond ratio, so use that to determine how many almonds you will need (1.5 to 1 for my creamer).   Be sure they’re soaking in enough water to cover the almonds by an inch or so, as they will expand, but don’t worry about measuring the water yet because you’re about to toss it out.

Strain and rinse the soaked almonds, the water will have picked up some bitterness from the brown skins that won’t taste too awesome if you keep it around.  Now blend the heck out of them with some fresh water.  Depending on your blender capacity, this will probably be less water than you’ll end up with, but keep track of what’s in there so that when you add more later your ratio can be accurate.

Pour the puree into a bowl through the cheesecloth, and squeeze as much out of the pulp as you can.  The harder you work here, the better it will be.

I’ve read that the pulp can be dried in the oven and used in granolas and cookies, but have never tried it myself.  Let me know if you do.

Once more, for good measure, strain through something finer.  I use a mesh sieve, but a coffee filter rigged to a slotted spoon would probably work well.

Add as much water as you like.  For milk milk, 3 to 1 on your almonds, for cream, half that.

At this point, you’ll need to salt it.  Be careful.  Too much will be a huge bummer.  Stir in salt a pinch at a time, tasting it every time until it’s just right.  You can sweeten it at this point, too, if you like.   Sugar is good, so is vanilla extract.   Now for patience.  Let is sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours.  A creamy layer will form on the top, just stir or shake it back in a couple of times and it will settle down.   It’s tasty on day one.  On day two it is kick-ass, and will stay that way for about a week.

Sliced polenta. And an ongoing struggle with a white wine reduction

[Super-special guest post by our dear friend Tunecedes.  Enjoy, -ed.]

I am so honored to be posting. I read everything on this darling blog and do my best at making every dish. In fact, I had great success with that chicken rub — very easy and tasty. Paired it with steamed haricot vert, which was just right. Oh also, I’m hereby requesting a post on Yellowhair’s tofu taco mix.

Today, though, I am not an imitator: I am an innovator. I’m here to tell you about a lovely dish I made with polenta, which, as you probably know, is basically just Italian for cornmeal. I once got a box of the dried stuff, but that ended terribly, so this time I bought one of those awkward-looking clear tubes somewhere near the pastas. It always weirds me out that those things are not in the refrigerated section because they look like cookie dough, but whatever — they’re fine, and I was feeling hopeful.

A few days later, the person most responsible for my food fervor visited for the weekend, and we planned a trip to the farmer’s market, where I now go every Saturday morning. Going to the farmer’s market every Saturday makes me feel like my life is right where it should be. This friend had just read In Defense of Food, so he was primed for fresh and local produce. And-and-and he was going to be my sous chef: a first time and a delight! We walked up and down the stalls, trying to brainstorm what we’d like to make. We picked out: purple beans, cipollini onions, cremini mushrooms, parsley, and salad greens from the cute Indian guy with the light eyes (we got arugula and French sorrel, which is excellent and has a zesty lemon flavor but should be used sparingly). The beans will be your dish-topper, so you can choose another green veg if you prefer (I’d recommend asparagus). You decide how much you want to make, but get equal portions of onions and mushrooms, but fewer beans (they can be green or yellow beans also). Things you need that you should have in your house anyway: butter, garlic, good olive oil, and white wine. Don’t be cheap with the the wine because it pairs perfectly with the meal, so beyond using it for your reduction, you’ll want to drink it.

I’m still baffled by a white wine reduction, but this last attempt has been my best shot. If you’re new at it, hang in there. You know you want to be able to say, “Then I topped it with a white wine reduction.” People will think you’re awesome, I swear. I will think you’re awesome. And anyway, maybe someday Yellowhair will teach us all the path to greatness.

Ok: I began by softening the onions (chopped to approx 1/4″ by my sous chef) in a pan with a little olive oil. Keep the heat low, and even cover those guys for a while. You’re not looking to brown them. So just keep an eye and move them around until they start to look nice and transparent. BE PATIENT, OK? YOU GOT PLENTY OF TIME. At this point, throw in the mushrooms (should be chopped about the same size as the onion) and garlic (one clove, minced) and keep softening. Let everything sort of blend together. Add a little more olive oil; again, you don’t want these guys burning. Once everything is soft, take the [what we are now calling] hash out, doing your best to leave in that oily juice — you will use this for the reduction. Put the hash aside to re-heat, or put it in the oven, but keep the heat low, shorty — you don’t want to turn your hash into soup.

Prepare your salad or side dish. For dressing, whisking a bit of olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and salt and pepper are the closest thing you can get to simple perfection.

Now here’s where you’ll begin the reduction. In the same pan with all the leftover oozy oil, add about a quarter of a bottle of white wine (more if you are serving 3+), which should get you to about an inch of liquid in your pan. Add a little butter (1-2 tbsp), and put it on medium-low. The wine, as it reduces, will make lots of funny, tiny bubbles. Just leave it simmering for a while until you start to notice a real decrease in the amount of liquid in the pan. This is supposed to become sauce-like, so you want to see it thicken; I think technically, you’re supposed to reduce to 25%. If you’re worried it’s not thickening, you should probably add more butter. My sous chef mistakenly over-encouraged me to add butter, which in the end was not the best idea and contributed to the non-perfection of the reduction. So just watch yourself. Oh and put that wine in the fridge for later.

Chop your parsley and set it aside. DO NOT SKIMP: THIS PARSLEY SHOULD BE FRESH AS IT IS ESSENTIAL TO THE LUXENESS OF THE DISH.

While reducing, I suggest that you begin steaming your beans. If it’s asparagus, wait a while: you are not going for flopsy veg here. Make sure your beans (which, if they started out purple, will now be green from the heat) are soft, yes, but you need them to have a little crunch because they will offset to all the other soft textures you’ve got going. I like to put them in a pan and brown them a little at the end, but you don’t have to.

When you’re at the end of the reducing (or if it’s done, just keep it warm on the burner), get another pan, put a little olive oil (1 tbsp-ish), and lightly fry your polenta. You should have sliced it about a quarter-inch thick. If you aren’t using the whole tube, don’t worry — whatever is left over can go in the fridge, either still in the tube or covered on a plate, whatever. Cook it on medium for about 5 minutes on each side. I turned up the heat at the end to get each side a tiny bit brown (and for a tiny bit of texture). Also during the polenta frying/reduction finishing, you want to warm up your hash. Now everything should be warm and ready. Except your side dish, which should already be on the table.

Plating: put a few slices of polenta on the plate, spoon a generous portion of your hash on top, drizzle with the reduction, place your green beans on top, and finish with chopped parsley. Don’t forget pour yourself a glass of white wine. Lucky for me, my sous chef took care of dessert: tiny poached pears (called bambinella) with sorbet. Yum yum.

“donuts, not volcanos” (in which I grill a pizza)

Somewhere is the deep, dark recesses of the internet, I once read that the closest a home cook can get to a professional, woodburning pizza oven is the common backyard grill.  Lacking even a pizza stone, myself, homemade pizza has always meant tasty, but doughy pies that sag at the middle when you hold the because the outside has cooked more than the middle.  So, of course, I had to try it.  For the experiment I called over my dear friend and resident pizza expert, Alex.

Before he arrived, I prepared my supplies: dough, jar (gasp!) of sauce, cheese (for this I paired a fairly sad mozzarella with a really nice parm, hopefully it evened things out), and some pre-cooked toppings.  Nothing is worse to me than a perfectly good pizza with a raw onion slice mucking it up.  I cooked some really great Italian sausage (made in-store at the Sun Harvest on South Lamar, Austinites), threw some onion slices on the grill for a bit, and roasted whole garlic cloves in the oven.  The garlic would have done nicely on the grill, too, if I’d had any aluminum foil in the house.  Also, a weird collection of utensils, just in case, since I had no idea how this would be working in the physical sense:

The dough recipe is an Alex original:

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast

mix

then add,
3/4 cups lukewarm water
3 tablespoons olive oil

knead for 5 minutes
(with flour to keep it from sticking everywhere)

cut dough in half (the recipe makes two pizzas)
put each half in an oil-coated bowl, covered with plastic wrap.
let rise for a few hours, until the dough doubles in size

I did it the night before and then kept it in the fridge until I was ready to use it.  I’m also told it freezes well.  From there, I took them one at a time to a floured work surface, floured my rolling pin, and rolled them out.  For ease of transport, I like to roll the dough onto the outside of the pin, so that I can carry it without stretching it out.

Then, all on its lonesome, it goes to the hot-hot grill:

Look at it bubble! Ay ay ay!

Once the crust has spent a few minutes and is looking all kinds of inflated, like the fella on the right there, flip it over and dress it up:

Careful that you don’t play too much to the middle here.  Alex says you want to top your pies “like, donuts, not volcanos.”  I put him in charge at this point, manning the grill, as men tend to do.  Ours has a two-tiered rack, and he’d keep and eye on the bottom and move it to the top level once the crust was done, so the cheese could further melt without overdoing the bottom of the pizza.

The result was perfect.  Crisp crust all throughout, and the garlic cloves he added at the end were roasted to perfect subtlety.   Highly recommended.

Chile Substitution Chart

Finally! (SeriousEats, via meener)

Apologies (and pasta)

So, I slacked off a bit after those last few posts.  Sorry about that, but it was a great idea.  I just tend to forget how long it takes to write you one of these.  In the meantime, we have been financially saved by the deposit refund fairy of the ‘09 lease (thanks again, Ma Roch), house cuteness quotient has been raised exponentially by a kitten named Blanche, and we are back to the land of modest food snobbery, if such a state is possible.  The countdown to October brought less creative pantry work out of me than I’d hoped.  Lately we’ve fallen into a bit of a slump–lots of baked potatoes and green beans and leftover chicken that my dad smoked for us last weekend.  I did want to share an old favorite with you, though, one I picked up from Mark Bittman somewhere (either on his Times blog or in Food Matters).  It’s much more a concept than a recipe (my favorite kind); I don’t measure a thing, but I’ll try to talk you through it.

Broccoli (Rabe) with Pasta and Bread Crumbs

(action shot)

On my own, it would never even occur to me to mix carbohydrates like this, but the result is lovely.  Rabe is parenthetical up there because I used the regular broccoli that I had on hand.  Having made this several times, I can tell you that it makes a huge difference.  While still delicious, this totally lacked without that wonderful bitterness that rabe has.  I recommend you stick with dark, bitter greens.  Rabe is wonderful or broccolini (is there a difference?), and I’m sure that kale, chard, or arugula would do great as well.

For the breadcrumbs, make your own.  It’s super easy and really steps it up. When I’ve got a loaf going stale or down to the heels, I throw it in the freezer for this or for croutons.  From there, you can just pulse them in a food processor until they are crumbly but not sawdust.  About here:

You’ll need two vessels on the stove for this: put a large pot of water on to boil, and heat some oil in a saute pan.  To the oil, add four cloves of garlic, slivered, and cook until they are fragrant.  Add some of the aforementioned breadcrumbs, whatever looks right, a cup or so, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes (don’t be afraid of using those little leftover packets from Papa John’s, either), and cook until the breadcrumbs are toast and golden.  Remove and set aside.

Once the water is boiling, salt it, and add the broccoli rabe.  Cook until softened, about 5 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.  In the same water (a lovely green tinge to it now) cook some spaghetti or similarly shaped pasta.  Oil your skillet again, give your rabe a rough chop, and add it to the oil, toss to coat and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Add the garlic and breadcumb mixture to the skillet, then the cooked pasta and toss.  Moisten with a bit of pasta water, if needed, and serve with some grated parmesan.

Comfortable

Days remaining: 14

Scrilla remaining: $117.26

Trip to the grocery store last night brought home some staples: fruit, yogurt, dried beans, a three-dollar bottle of wine (as bad as it sounds but I’m not complaining), and a third of a pound of this devilishly good Italian sausage that we love.  I always buy it in such small denominations, using it sparingly in pastas and on pizza more for flavor than for protein.  This bit cost me only 87 cents.

As promised, last night I salvaged what potatoes I could from a dish Little One made last week, added to it a pound of ground beef, browned in onion and garlic, a few chopped carrots, some Worchestershire, and a can of cream of mushroom, and stuck it in the oven.  It ended up being this sort of cottage pie-esque casserole.  Felt really lazy, but she loved it.  Hugged me after for a long time and when I asked what was wrong, said, “I just feel like I haven’t been appreciating you very much lately.”  I then proceeded to melt into a puddle on the kitchen floor.

More than anything, though, it reminded me of an old fire station staple that my dad used to make.  He called in No-Name and it was the same beef/onion/cream of mushroom combination stirred into elbow macaroni and occasionally with a can of corn.  Certainly nothing to brag about, but there is something about sopping up that soupy mess with a slice of white bread that is so comforting and right.

Fancier tonight.  Looking forward to the challenge.

let’s be real

Today is September 16th and I just got paid for the week.  Let’s be real for a second, times are tough.  Last week I had my first overdraft of the year, which is luckily covered by an annual act of mercy offered by my bank (thanks, WaMu/Chase!), so I’ve got an extra close eye on things from here on out.   I’ve just calculated that after sending out the last of my bills for the month, in order to make rent, I have a budget of exactly $134.83 to get us through the next two weeks.  As a food budget for two goes, that is not too shabby, but that has to cover everything, so I need to be extra careful.

To make matters all the more frustrating, this past weekend’s shopping trip was foiled by our neighborhood grocery store (I’m naming names: HEB Hancock Center) selling rotten produce “on sale”.  It didn’t look rotten, but within 24 hours of getting home, 5 lb. bag of potatoes = weird yellow stinky mush exploding from the eyes, pint of cherry tomatoes = dark smelly insides, and ears of corn = inedibly dried-out kernels.  The one bright spot I thought existed was the eight dollar (!) box of clementines, a staple in our house, until this morning.  In the car, on the way to school, Little One peels a clementine, bites into a wedge, immediately spits it out and says, “It tastes like mayonnaise.”  At this point, I am so frustrated I want to drive by late at night and throw every last stinky fruit and vegetable at their front door.  Especially the potatoes.  They were so rank.  And slimy.

But I do love a challenge!  And nothing gets me going like a round of “What the Hell Can I Make with All This Stuff at the Back of My Pantry?!”  So for the sake of information, feedback, and budgetary accountability (don’t let me get the credit card out), I would like to take you with me.  Beginning tonight, when a leftover, tragically unsuccessful potato dish by an enthusiastic and adorable underage chef will be given a new life by a pound of ground beef and a sad, sad can of cream of mushroom soup worthy of lazy East Texas FBC potluck.

Wish me luck.

Soup Season: Fried Chicken Gumbo

It’s been an especially rainy weekend in Austin, and the temperature’s down to a whopping seventy-five degrees.  I realize this is probably a bit premature, but I’ve officially declared the beginning of soup season at out house, a decision pushed forward quite a bit by a recipe for Fried Chicken Gumbo posted this week, oddly enough, on my favorite Thai cooking blog.

Being from very, very East Texas and a rabid snob about all things Cajun, the idea of a gumbo that simmers for less than four hours is nothing short of blasphemy.  I can, however, appreciate a very gumbo-esque soup that is ridiculously delicious and quick enough to actually make on a weeknight, and the idea of using the leftover batter and oil from frying chicken to make a roux is inspired.  It really makes the dish.

I cannot top Jam’s recipe or her photographs, so I will simply link and supplement:

OMG CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME

For those of you who haven’t broken down a raw chicken before, this might require a bit more instruction than she provides.  I use the method employed by my new favorite You Tube star, Chef Jay:

For the batter, I didn’t have any garlic powder or, surprisingly, paprika, so I used garlic salt (and cut the salt, of course), and added cayenne to make things a bit more Cajun.

I omitted the sausage altogether, because things were already looking pretty crowded in there.  If you keep the sausage in, I would probably increase the stock, too.  And while we’re on the subject, keep in mind that stock isn’t broth.

Be sure to give it a taste at the end.  For me, the tiniest bit of last-minute salt made this over-the-top delicious, as did, in my case, a few shakes of Tabasco.

“i am the urchin attached to your celeb status”

Recession Cooking: Chickens

[longest post ever.  get comfy. -ed.]

I read in the newspaper that the recession is over, but I am still broke.  My stash of fancy cheeses and over-priced culinary acoutrements is suffering and I’ve suddenly become one of those a-holes that blocks the front door at HEB staring at that big wall of yellow coupons.  But how will I ever decide what kind of moisturizer to buy if Oil of Olay isn’t $1.00 off?  These are thin times.

Food-wise, I’ve been finding money-saving tricks at the grocery store.  Of course, there’s our favorite, the bulk section, where you can buy a baggie of most any spice for 32 cents.  I’ve also been baking a lot of bread (more to come on that).  But right now my very favorite is the whole chicken.  That’s right, a whole chicken.  I don’t know what it is, maybe it scares people, but as compared to the boneless, skinless breasts we all tend to defer to, a whole chicken is incredibly cheap.  Usually about a dollar a pound at my grocery store.  But butchering a raw chicken yourself is a difficult and pretty disgusting process if, like me, you don’t know what you’re doing.  If you grocery store is a step above mine and actually has a meat counter, the butcher there will butterfly it for you upon request.  This allows you to lay the chicken flat and cook it quite a bit faster.  But that doesn’t look near as cool.

If I ever get around to posting about gumbo, I’ll talk you through boiling one, but for today, my very favorite way to prepare this bird is to roast it.  Spice-wise, I’ll be keeping things pretty tradish in this post, but the possibilities are really infinite here, and I’ll include some variations at the end.  I found this method in an old issue of Food and Wine magazine (another great recession trick–it’s honestly got as many recipes as a cookbook, but only costs you $3.50), and have very nearly kept to it completely.

Disclosure: I don’t own a roasting pan.  And I sure as hell can’t invest in one right now, so in these photos you’ll see me cheating in a way your grandmother would probably consider blasphemous: I’m using a casserole dish.  I know, it’s shameful, but it gets the job done.  Two big drawbacks here: it has no rack.  If you have a roasting pan, you have a wire rack to suspend the bird over its cooking liquid by about an inch.  It cooks just as well without, but the skin won’t crisp to the full extent that it would otherwise.   I can manage.  Secondly, at the end we’ll be making an au jus.  Ideally, for this you’d want to put the roasting pan directly onto the stove top, so that you can deglaze the lovely bits stuck to the bottom.  But you can’t put glass on the stove top or it will burst.  Again, I can manage.  So here we go.

Adjust your oven racks so that one is in the bottom third and preheat to 425, then get your bird in the sink.  In the cavity there will be some innards, a heart, some squishy brown thing, and some other thing.  If you’re braver than I you can google it and makes something with these, or you could use them to catch a catfish, or you could throw them away.  Either way, tip it over and dump them out, then give the chicken a rinse.  It’s a lot like bathing an infant, so try not to think of that later when you’re taking a knife to it.  Pat it dry and lay it on its back.  At the opening of the cavity, there are two fatty, flappy pieces of skin, trim those off as best you can with a sharp knife and discard them.  Run your fingers underneath the skin, separating the skin from the meat, but leaving it in tact (it’s much more resilient that you might expect).  Flip the bird (ha!) over and do the same to the back side.

Now the rub.  With a fork, mash the following into two tablespoons of softened butter:

a sprig’s worth of thyme, minced

a sprig’s worth of rosemary, minced

a clove of garlic, minced

the zest of one lemon

salt and pepper

With your hands, rub half of this mixture under the skin (on both sides) and the other half all over the outside of the chicken.  Sprinkle salt and pepper all over it and set in breast-side-up in your pan.

Now for some friends.  Add to the pan around the chicken (maybe a couple inside, if you like):

a large onion, cut into 8 wedges

four cloves garlic, whole

two sprigs thyme, whole

two sprigs rosemary, whole

that lemon you zested, cut crosswise into 8 or so slices

one half cup of water

and, optionally, a potato or two in large, but bite-sizey, pieces

at this point, you should be looking like this:

Put it in the oven and go watch a 30Rock or something.  After 30 minutes, take it out and flip the chicken over.  If you own tongs, congratulations.  If not, I stick the handle of a wooden spoon inside the cavity and lift it in the air, then spin it with a second spoon and set it back down.  If you are doing this without a roasting rack, be careful about the skin sticking to the bottom, you don’t want it to tear.  In fact, I usually rub a little butter in the bottom of my casserole dish to be safe.  Back in the oven for another 20 minutes, then flip it again and add another half cup of water.  20 more minutes and you’re done.

Lovely.  With your tongs (lucky) or weird spoon tactics, take the chicken out and set it on a cutting board.  Like all meats, it has to rest before you cut it, or you’ll loose all the moisture as soon as you cut into it.  While it’s resting, spoon the fat off the top of your cooking liquids and put the (metal!) pan over medium heat (glassware users, scrape as much as you can into a skillet or saucepan) and deglaze with a half cup of chicken stock or wine.  Simmer and let it reduce until it’s sufficiently saucey.  If you added the potatoes back at the beginning, I’d spoon those out first, as they will mush beyond repair with the added heat.  Once the au jus is done, fish out the lemons and sprigs, then you can serve this on top of your chicken.

Okay, let’s break this thing down.  Make your first cut where the leg meets the body.  Cut down, then pull the leg out and it will come apart easily with the thigh attached:

Then the other side.  Plate ‘em up.  Now you’ll bring your knife to the center of the breast and cut down until your feel the breastbone.

At the breastbone, turn your knife out and cut the breast away from the ribs.  Again, this will come off very easily.

It will come off with the wing attached.  You can serve it like that, or cut them apart.  Repeat on the other side, and voila!

Now, depending on how well you did that, there will be a lot or a little meat left on the carcass.  If you are a baller and it’s a little, snack time!  If not, that’s okay, but it’s delicious, so pick that thing clean, then go make the greatest chicken salad of your life.  The bones you can certainly throw away, but this is a recession and those babies can make you a pretty delicious stock later on, and they will keep for a long while in the freezer until you are ready for that.

Serve it all up with your taters and your onions and spoon some of that au jus over the top and you’re there.  All for about six dollars.

Variations

These are straight from the magazine–I’ve tried the first one and loved it, planning on exploring the other two soon.

Moroccan: Replace the thyme and rosemary with one teaspoon each of cumin, coriander, and sweet paprika, plus 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne and cinnamon.  Replace the lemon with 12 pitted dates and 12 dried apricots.

Ginger: Replace the thyme and rosemary with one tablespoon minced ginger.  Replace lemon with ginger slices, two seeded and thinly sliced serrano peppers, and one quartered lime.  To the jus, stir in one tablespoon of fish sauce.

Curry: Replace thyme and rosemary with one teaspoon Madras curry powder.  Replace lemon with two serranos and two cups seeded, diced tomatoes.  To the jus, stir in two tablespoons Greek yogurt before serving.