These are a few of my favorite things

My love for cooking extends to all aspects of it. I collect cookbooks, recipes, and even cooking tools. Recently, I collected a variety of antique kitchen tools and appliances. Enameled colanders, wooden mixing bowls, food scales, hand crank coffee grinders and percolators, bakeware, butter churns, flour sifters. They are displayed atop my cupboards. 



I appreciate the nostalgia of these old cooking items. They are just the kind of things that would have been used in our old Victorian house over the course of its 115 years of existence. I find that very cool. Somebody 50 or 100 years ago used these things in the everyday acts of preparing food and drink for their family. I have a few little tools from my mother, grandmother, and Jim's grandmother too. I like to think a little of their energy is left in them. Just another way cooking connects us, this time to our predecessors.


Can you tell what they are?

One of the cooking magazines I read, perhaps Bon Appetit, does one page interviews with top chefs and other celebrities and often the interviewer asks about can't-live-without ingredients or tools. I am always fascinated by this (I am sure it could be the voyeur in me needing to know what is in their cupboards or fridges). 


So I was thinking: what would I answer? While I have drawers and cupboards and storage bins of things that don't even fit in my kitchen, there really only a handful of things that I just can't do without. These are my favorites. What are yours?

Pam's Favorite 

Kitchen Tools 

(in no particular order)

• Chef's knife—I have 10" and 8" Henkels' chef's knives. I like the sturdy feel and ease of cutting. I try to keep them sharp. Even just a cheap sharpening tool can make a big difference in how well it cuts. 

• Microplane—ginger, garlic, citrus zests, lemongrass.  What did I ever do before the microplane?

• Lemon juicer—I use fresh lemon juice in many things. My lemon juicer has a built in strainer for the seeds and pulp. Easier than using a reamer and strainer.

• Heavy duty griddle—The kids love pancakes of any kind as well as french toast. I have a two-burner stovetop griddle as well as a built-in cast iron griddle on my stove. We also use it regularly to make quesadillas, grilled cheese, flatbreads and pizzas. 

• 12" covered saute pan—I make most everyday meals in this. From searing to saucing to serving it up. This pan does it all.

• Favorite spatula—the $0.79 yellow plastic spatula I got when I was 18. It is thin and flexible and has a tapered edge. It is great for getting under difficult to maneuver foods and doesn't scratch pans. I have never found one just like it since.

• Mini food processor—nuts, small amounts of bread crumbs, small amounts of herbs, whipping flax, mincing onions. Just used it tonight to make a lime and herb sauce to dress up some halibut. Very convenient.

• Mini-food slicer—I have a small, hand held version of a mandolin. It creates uniform slices (some extremely thin) quickly. Great for slicing apples for the dehydrator, thinly slicing onions, and slicing potatoes to fry up for brunch.

• Immersion blender—Great for pureeing hot soups and sauces right in the pan. I also use it for mixing batters and making smoothies right in their cups. A quick rinse is all it takes to clean it off. I rarely ever use my regular blender at all.

• Pressure cooker—I use this a lot in winter. It cuts down the time of braising and stewing from hours to minutes. Brown rice in about 11 minutes, unsoaked, dried beans in 35. A major time saver.

• Measure All Cup from the pampered chef. This is a plunger style 2 cup measurer just right for measuring those tricky or messy things like shortening, peanut butter, honey. It adjusts for any size and automatically scrapes the sides for you.

• Scoops with squeeze action handles—I have a few sizes of these. So perfect for filling muffin tins (we make lots of those), evenly apportioning cookie dough, and making meatballs too. Much neater than hands or spoons.

Pozole for Las Posadas

One reason I enjoy trying new recipes is that that they have a great capacity to connect people. When I eat food from other countries I feel like I have a little better understanding of different cultures and their traditional foods. For the December meeting of our neighborhood cooking group, we shared several dishes representing holiday traditions around the world. We had a feast of Jewish, German, Swedish, African, Finnish, Mexican and French foods.

This was just the opportunity I needed. For a while, I have been wanting to make pozole, a Mexican pork and hominy stew that has been eaten for something like 500 years. Lots of Latinos eat pozole during their celebration of Las Posadas, which is celebrated December 16-24. The pozole I made was quite tasty with ultra-tender pieces of pork, a broth laden with the flavors or chilies and cumin, the wonderful toothy texture of the hominy, and the crunch of various fresh toppings. It was also fairly quick to make in my pressure cooker. Pozole is served along with several toppings such as sliced radishes, shredded cabbage or lettuce, cilantro, and lime so everyone gets to customize their soup experience. This, along with the fact you can make a big batch easily, makes it great for a party.


Before cooking I started, as usual, by checking out a variety of sources online and found some promising recipes.

• Epicurious' Holiday Pork Posole
• Fiesta Kitchen's Pozole
• Reluctant Gourmet's Classic Posole

I used the recipes to learn about common ingredients, their proportions, and techniques for cooking, but ended up kinda doing my own thing. I made it mild since my kids were eating it and served it with some Cholula hot sauce for those who like it hot. For a more authentic version, soak some ancho chilies in water or broth, remove seeds and stems; then puree them and the soaking liquid and toss it into your posole. Here is my more gringo-friendly rendition:

POZOLE
Serves 8-10

1 Tbs. olive oil
3 lbs. pork shoulder, cut into 2" cubes (save the bones)

2 medium onions, chopped

2 poblano chiles, chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

3-4 tsp. dried oregano

2-3 tsp. cumin

1-2 Tbs. chili powder

½ tsp. hot Mexican chile powder

3—14 oz. cans chicken stock

1—14 oz. can diced tomatoes

Salt and pepper

2—30 oz cans hominy

Garnishes: slivered radishes, shredded savoy cabbage, cubed avocado, diced onion, chopped fresh cilantro, crispy corn strips (see below), lime wedges

Dry meat off with paper towels; generously salt and pepper it. Heat oil in heavy bottomed dutch oven (I used my pressure cooker). When hot, brown meat in batches. Remove to a plate. Toss onion, peppers, and garlic into the pan and cook until golden, adding a little more oil if needed. 


Return meat to pan. Add 2 cans stock, tomatoes with juice, 2 tsp. oregano, 1 tsp. cumin, and Mexican chili powder. Simmer over medium-low heat for 2-3 hours, until meat it tender but still holds its shape (25 minutes in a pressure cooker). Add hominy, remaining seasonings and the other can of stock if desired. Salt and pepper to taste. 


Serve piping hot with garnishes of your choice.




CRISPY CORN STRIPS
Cut a stack of soft corn tortillas in half then into 1/4" wide strips (1 tortilla for every 2-3 people or so). Toss them on a baking sheet with a little olive oil. Spread them out and lightly salt. Bake in a 375° oven until crispy (some with be browned), about 6-8 minutes. Cool.

Learning to like new things

I find that the more new foods you try, the more adventurous your palate gets. I think this goes for kids and adults alike, which is why I am pretty insistent that my kids try new things all the time. And I do find that they will not only try, but get excited about trying, new things. Once I brought home leftover flatbread with duck, figs, and blue cheese. Not really standard K-5 fare, but Ethan, upon learning there was blue cheese involved, asked to try it and devoured all of it for lunch the next day.


The truth is tastes change—with exposure, with time, and even with practice. If my kids don't take to something right away, I'll often keep making it, sometimes with different variations, knowing that their tastes can shift. I recently read that kids need to eat the same new food (prepared the same way) something like six times before they will accept it into their eating repertoire. It makes me a little sad to hear parents categorically say things like, "He won't eat it. He doesn't like corn/carrots/mushrooms, etc." I tend to think, "He may not like it yet, but he hasn't eaten this particular dish yet." Who knows?


Over time our tastes mature. I love a big vodka martini now, but as a child it would have made me gag. As a child, I thought Domino's pizza sauce was spicy. Now, I will happily eat things so hot they make me sweat and cry simultaneously. As a child, I did not favor beets or pretty much anything in orange hues (winter squash, rutabaga, cooked carrots). As an adult, beets became a favorite veggie for me without any effort. I had to work a little to like the orange things.


I am a firm believer that you can teach yourself to like new foods. Over the years, especially before I had kids, I would make an annual food resolution which involved adding a new food (generally something I disliked but had nutritional merit) to my diet over the course of a year. I would try a variety of new recipes until I came upon one I liked. Once I found one and became comfortable with the new food then I could expand to other ways of using it. 


Eggplant parmesan opened the doors for baingan bharta, chinese eggplants in garlic sauce, baba ghanoush, and eggplant "meatballs." Tofu was tasteless, until I tried it with peanut sauce and broccoli (see below). Now, Sam and Ethan eagerly gobble down sesame fried tofu with asparagus and shiitakes. Grapefruit eluded me, until I found out that if you remove the membrane around each segment, the bitterness I despised disappeared. When I was pregnant with Ethan, I craved pink grapefruit and ate it, peeled like an orange, nearly every day for a time.
 
I hope that all of you reading this will continue to try new things and encourage your kids to do the same. I know that the next time we go to Zen Gardens in South Burlington, I will be skipping the General Tso Chicken in favor of the house special jelly fish or fried sea cucumber. I am sure if the boys are with me they will ask to try it before I even offer. I love that about them!


Here's one of those gateway recipes I mentioned above.

Broccoli and Tofu in Spicy Peanut Sauce 
from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen.


The Sauce
1/2 cup peanut butter, unprocessed is best
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 Tbs. tamari or soy sauce
2 Tbs. molasses
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper


In a small saucepan, whisk together peanut butter and water until uniform. Whisk in remaining ingredients and set aside.


The Saute
1 lb. bunch of fresh broccoli, chopped into flowerettes
3 Tbs. peanut oil (I use much less)
2 tsp. freshly grated ginger root
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. firm tofu, cubed (I like to press this to get some of the water out first)
Salt and pepper
2 cups thinly sliced onion
1 cup coarsely chopped raw peanuts
2-3 Tbs. tamari or soy sauce
2 freshly minced scallions


Directions (paraphrased)
Heat 1 Tbs. oil in a hot wok or saute pan. Add half the garlic and ginger then tofu. Season with salt and pepper. Stir fry 5-8 minutes then transfer to the saucepan of sauce.


Add a little more oil to the pan. Add remaining ginger, garlic and onions. Season with salt and pepper. Stir fry until onions are beginning to get soft. Meanwhile, heat the peanut sauce gently over low heat.


Add broccoli, tamari, and peanuts to the pan and stir fry for 5 minutes or so, until bright green and just tender. Pour sauce over the saute. Sprinkle with scallions. Serve with rice.


The sauce is also great over noodles.

Breakfast for Dinner Pizza and Butterscotch Pudding Cake: Two Keeper from Sara Moulton

Not too long ago, I purchased Sara Moulton's newest cookbook, Everyday Family Dinners. I gotta say, I like the lady. We don't have cable, but on occasion I see her on our public television Create channel. She is just a no-nonsense person. She talks about how she came up with different recipes and what her family thinks of them, offers lots of variations for ingredients and techniques, and basically cooks in real time. She is a classically-trained chef who isn't afraid to use beans from a can or frozen veggies in a pinch to get food on the table for her family. When you read her book it almost feels like she is in the room with you having a little chat. 


One of my favorite lines of hers is "Left to my own devices, I'm tempted to finish off just about every recipe with a fried or poached egg." And in this cookbook she does seem to do just that. She puts eggs over warm lentils with roasted tomato vinaigrette, poaches them in yogurt with sage oil, stuffs them in phyllo cups with creamed spinach, and uses them as a topping for cheesy grits with corn, to name a few of her creations. This past week, I made her Breakfast for Dinner Pizza, which calls for topping a potato, bacon and Gruyere flatbread with a fried egg. We all enjoyed it. Ethan ate two big servings. It is perfect with a little side salad or even some fruit. It was simple, different and yet somehow classic. 

Breakfast for Dinner Pizza

Adapted from Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners

1 — 20 oz bag of store-bought pizza dough
8 oz. maple cured bacon
1 1/4 lbs. small yukon gold potatoes, thinly 
    sliced
1/2 vidalia onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
Salt and Pepper to taste
8 oz. Gruyere cheese, grated
6 large eggs


Remove the dough from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before you begin preparing dinner. Preheat the oven to 475° F.  


Cook the bacon in a large skillet until firm and just beginning to brown, but slightly undercooked. Drain on paper towels.


Drain and reserve the fat from the pan and wipe it out with a paper towel. Return 1 Tbs. of the bacon fat (let the burnt bits settle first) to the skillet (or you can use olive oil) over high heat. When hot, add the potatoes and onion; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and half the rosemary. Reduce heat to med-high and cook the mixture until the potatoes are just tender, turning several times. Set aside.


Roll or press out the dough into a 14x10" rectangle and place it onto a baking sheet lightly sprinkled with cornmeal. Bake for 3-4 minutes, until set but not browned. Let it cool a few minutes before proceeding.


Arrange the potatoes and onion over the crust. Sprinkle it with the remaining rosemary, cheese, and crumbled bacon. Bake on the bottom rack of the oven for 8-10 minutes until the cheese is melted and the crust is browned.


Fry the eggs in the same skillet, using additional bacon fat or olive oil, until they are cooked as you like them. A runny yolk is nice in this dish. Season with salt and pepper.


When the pizza is done baking, cut it into 6 pieces and top each with a fried egg.


Makes 6 servings

Butterscotch Pudding Cake

From Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners

Another of Sara's recipes I recently made was Butterscotch Pudding Cake. I am a big fan of chocolate pudding cake, but eating chocolate after dinner sometimes has a way of making sure Jim and I understand we are not as young as we used to be. Waking up at two am and not being able to get back to sleep has motivated me to find other non-chocolate alternatives for the occasional dessert I make. 


I love butterscotch so when I saw the delicious picture in her book of the golden cake and warm pools of buttery sauce topped with melting vanilla ice cream, I new I needed to act. And I am glad I did. Like its chocolate brethren, the preparation involves topping a stiff batter with boiling water, baking, and voila, out of the oven comes a light cake with a crispy surface atop a layer of molten pudding. It is not too sweet and has a little saltiness to it that makes your mouth water. We topped ours with a generous dollop of maple flavored whipped cream. So easy and quick to make, so delightfully homey to eat. 


4 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup boiling water


Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly grease an 8 cup shallow baking dish or pan. Melt the butter. Bring water to boil.


Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl until there are not brown sugar lumps. Add the milk, butter, and vanilla. Stir until just combined; transfer the batter to the baking dish.


Pour the boiling water carefully over the surface of the batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cake has a crisp golden surface and the pudding sauce on the bottom bubbles.

Set aside for 5-10 to cool slightly. Serve warm.


Serves 4-6

It turns out we do like brussel sprouts

I remember liking brussel sprouts the few times I ate them as a child (probably because they were so cute), despite that they were bland, overcooked, and most certainly from the freezer. However, as an adult, I have only ventured to prepare fresh brussel sprouts a few times; and without much success, I might add. Either they were bitter or too crunchy or tasteless. The boys, who are not generally picky children, would not even put them in their mouths. I actually caught Jim (who, BTW, has even eaten burnt clam chowder with a smile) scraping most of his serving into the garbage disposal after dinner on one occasion.

In the past few years, I have noticed that fresh brussel sprouts are becoming more readily available, particularly this time of year. Despite my lack of success with them, those little tiny second cousins of my pal, the cabbage, still beckon me. Recently, I saw a recipe for Brussel Sprouts with Onions, Apples, and Bacon in a newspaper ad for our Healthy Living market. I gave it a try and 'Houston, we have lift off!' They had a nice carmelization, with the sweetness of onion and apple, crunchy, salty bits of bacon, and a little apple cider vinegar for zing. The boys did not love them, but they did eat what was put on their plates with little complaint. Jim stole the leftovers before I could even pack them in my lunch the next day! His enjoyment of them stunned him as much as me.


So I ended up making them again for Thanksgiving with Jim's family. Of course, with all the other vegetables to choose from, Sam and Ethan's less adventurous cousins were not enticed at all. But those of us adults who ate them did enjoy them.


Both times, I used more vinegar than called for. Next time, I think I may make a dressing of maple, a smidge of dijon, cider vinegar, and maybe a splash of soy to toss them with for even more flavor. Or an apple cider reduction? Or how about working some miso in there? As you can see, I am inspired now and happy to welcome brussel sprouts to my permanent repertoire.


Healthy Living's Brussel Sprouts with Onion, Apple, and Bacon


2 lbs Brussel sprouts
6-8 slices thick cut bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces
1 medium yellow onion, sliced in ½ inch wedges 
1 apples, cored and sliced in ½ inch wedges, unpeeled
2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper 


A large cast iron or heavy bottomed skillet will work best for this recipe. With the skillet on medium-high heat, render bacon pieces until crispy; drain on paper towels. Do not discard the bacon fat left in the pan. 


Prepare the Brussels by peeling off the tough outer leaves, slicing off any remaining stem and cutting each Brussel sprout in half (or in quarters if they are very large). Turn heat on pan up to high, when the bacon fat left in the pan is smoking add the Brussels. Do not stir for 2-3 minutes. Add onions, season with salt and pepper (easy on the salt, as the bacon is salty) and cook over medium-high for another 10-15 minutes, tossing occasionally. Add the apples and thyme, toss together and cook for 5-10 more minutes. The onions should be soft, Brussel sprouts tender and golden and the apples cooked but not mushy. Remove from oven, sprinkle with vinegar, and toss bacon back in. Adjust seasoning and serve immediately.