Salad, but no meat and potatoes.

In the last city where my Yeti wife and I lived there was a food recipe in the local newspaper with a title something like "meat and potatoes make a refreshing summer salad." I thought that was really kind of silly. I mean, sure, meat and potatoes could make a nice summer meal, when you have some nice thin skirt steak grilled and then sliced on a bias against the grain, and then you have some spicy potatoes, and maybe other grilled veggies, all in a tortilla. Maybe with some cilantro too. With some pitchers of vodka and lemonade. And maybe a few home-made frozen treats for the snowdogs. But come on, meat and potatoes are a refreshing summer salad? You've got to be kidding. So here is a nice salad I made the other night as part of dinner. It was so good we made it 2 days in a row for dinner afterwards. And the nice thing is that it really doesn't need any more dressing other than the ingredients shown as part of the salad. If you want to dress it up a bit I guess you could add some other stuff, but I'll have some suggestions at the end of this post.

A Refreshing Salad, even in Summer, Without Meat and Potatoes

1 head of Romaine lettuce
1 large roasted red pepper, or 5-6 large slices of canned roasted red peppers, cut into slices or diced, include the liquid
1 tablespoon of capers with their liquid, preferably packed in brine
pinch of salt
ground black pepper to taste

Cut the head of lettuce into about 1 or 2 inch pieces. Put the lettuce in a large bowl. In a separate small bowl, combine the capers, salt, black pepper, and red peppers and stir gently. Pour the caper and pepper mix over the salad. Toss gently.

That's it. If you want to dress this up a bit, I'd add a single clove of garlic, minced very finely or crushed, into the peppers and caper mix, or add a teaspoon of good balsamic vinegar. If you want this to be really fancy, sprinkle some finely grated Peccorino Romano cheese, about 2-3 tablespoons, over the top of the salad.

Serves 1 Yeti per head of lettuce, 2 people as a main dish, or 3-4 as a side salad.

Faster but not as good veggie lasagna

Hey to all you Yeti lovers, and the less adventurous among you. This is a similar but easier and faster veggie lasagna than the version I just posted. I really like the other one much better in terms of texture and overall presentation (it holds together better, etc.), but this one is good too. And faster. And easier. This way you can spend more time with your snowdogs.

Veggie Lasagna

1 package of lasagna noodles (12 or 16 ounces), or you can use ready-to-bake ones too.
½ cup of julienne carrots
1 medium onion, small dice
1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 bell pepper, small dice
some good tomato sauce (I like Prego brand, organic, or Parmalat, but use your favorite plain marinara)
about 1 to 1 ½ lbs of shredded cheese – I prefer a blend of provolone, mozzarella, asiago, parmesan and romano)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
optional – fresh basil and oregano
even more optional – a good, quick and basic tomato sauce for this can be made from a 16 ounce can of plain chopped tomatoes, 1 tsp of garlic powder, 1 tsp of onion powder, some basil and oregano, a pinch of dried rosemary, a small pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper, allowed to simmer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-low heat. Sauté together the onion, carrots, garlic and bell pepper until the carrots are softened. Add the thawed and drained spinach and about 1 cup of the tomato sauce. Bring to a low simmer and then remove from the heat and allow to cool. This is the filling for the lasagna. If you are using lasagna noodles that need pre-cooking, then start a pot of lightly salted water boiling for the pasta.

After the vegetable and tomato sauce mixture and everything else is prepared, partially cook the lasagna noodles. They should only be cooked until flexible, not until done or al dente, as they will finish in the oven. They should be drained and rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking process.

Lightly oil a deep pan (either 9 x 9 or 9 x 13 or something like that, preferably at least 2 inches deep) or spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. This will prevent the lasagna from sticking.
Spoon a thin layer of the vegetable and sauce mixture on the bottom of the oiled pan.

Lay a single overlapping layer of lasagna noodles over the top of the mixture, and then sprinkle liberally with cheese. This is also a good time to add the optional fresh basil and oregano. Add additional tomato sauce, veggie mixture or cheese where desired. Repeat the layering until within a ¼ inch of the top of the pan and finish with a tomato sauce and cheese layer. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes. This can also be frozen before baking and placed directly from the freezer to the oven but the time needs to be increased to and hour and 15 minutes.

This feeds a couple of Yeti, or two to three couples with salad (about 6 people). This doesn't feed any snowdogs because they can't eat onions, it's bad for them.

Well, it's the best vegetable lasagna I've had.

Ok. If my formatting looks strange that's because I pasted this in from an already typed up version. This is the best veggie lasagna I've had, ever, hands down. Not vegan though. If you want lacto-ovo veggie you also need to take out the Worcestershire sauce as it has anchovies in it. I've made some different versions of this, and I have written down some versions that take less time and effort but they're not as good. But they are faster. Sometimes faster trumps better. Just ask me about that after I chow down on a fast food double cheeseburger sometime. Snowdogs also want cheeseburgers, but they can't have them. It would interfere with their delicate constitutions. I'll post the faster but not as good version later. Maybe this weekend.

Also, we made this version of the best veggie lasagna ever for a visiting wendigo this weekend. She's small but feisty. We had a good time talking about stuff. My Yeti wife needed the brain stimulation.

Best Vegetable Lasagna I've had. Even Lasagne.

8 oz Fontina or whole milk mozzarella, shredded
1 cup Romano or Parmesan cheese, preferably fresh, shredded
6 oz or so medium or sharp Provolone, shredded
4 oz good feta, crumbled
2 large carrots, grated on a box grater
2 thawed packages of frozen chopped spinach, reserve the liquid
2 ribs of celery, grated on a box grater
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed or minced very fine
1 ½ medium onions, your favorite variety, grated on a box grater
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Black pepper, salt
teaspoon paprika
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 lb lasagna noodles
about 26oz of your favorite marinara sauce, I like the organic Prego or Parmalat for this dish
Optional: 1 ½ to 2 oz fresh basil, shredded, added to sauce
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In a deep and heavy bottomed saucepan or stock pot, add the tablespoon of olive oil. Place the saucepan over medium high heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add all the carrots, celery, onion, garlic, spinach, and associated water from the shredding or thawed garlic. Also add the Worcestershire sauce, oregano, a heavy pinch of salt, and about a teaspoon of ground black pepper. Make sure you add that liquid from the shredded veggies at it has a lot of good vitamins in it you don't want to lose. Sweat the vegetables and reduce the liquid. This will take probably 20-30 minutes on medium to medium-high heat. Stir it every once in a while too or the mix might burn. You'll want just a thin layer of water remaining in the bottom of the pan when you're done. The veggies should have a bit of body to them when you're done. You're not making mushy veg, unless you want it. I usually test the carrots and as long as they are sort of al dente that's fine for me. If you're not sure about how much liquid you have left, or if you have a lot more and you think your veggies are quite done, remove the vegetables and reduce the liquid down. Remove this mix from the heat and allow it to cool.

Add the paprika and optional basil to the sauce and stir it through. Add the crumbled feta to the cooled vegetable mix and stir that through. After all that stirring you're ready to assemble. Follow the diagram below. Bake for about 30 minutes. Allow to sit for 15 before cutting and serving. Enjoy.

And here is your construction diagram. Read this from the bottom up. I'd use an oven-safe pan with at least 2 inches of depth.
Layers
_________ etc. going up.
_________ pasta
_________ cheese
_________ mozz slices
_________ sauce
_________ veg
_________ pasta
Some small amount of sauce (it keeps the bottom noodles from sticking. Just ask Lidia Bastianich)
Deep sided oven-safe baking dish

Feeds about 3 Yeti with salad. Or 6 people. Or 2 very hungry snowdogs that are being very bad and standing on their hind legs and eating off your counter. My snowdogs are very well behaved and don't do that. Do yours?

Preserved lemon chicken tagine, also with preserved lemons. Mmm, like braising with a pointy hat!

There aren't a whole lot of different cooking techniques, but there are sure a lot of ways to make cooks feel intimidated with different pots, pans, and specialty apparatuses. Take for instance the tagine. People that are not familiar with it are often confused about the wide shallow bottom and hat-like top. Well, once you know it's just a fancy and efficient braising dish, life gets a whole lot easier. My Yeti wife and I got a tagine as a wedding present and I like to use it occasionally. Here is one of my favorite dishes for the tagine. It's North African in inspiration, even if the ingredients aren't fully authentic. Enjoy! I know the snowdogs like it when they see the tagine come out, as that usually means they get to sit around with me and hang out for a few hours.

If you don't have a tagine you can also do this in any braising dish setup, including transferring things to a crock pot after browning, or using a dutch oven on your stovetop. It will still turn out just as good, but it won't be as cool looking.

You can also do this with lamb, preferably shanks. Just make sure they fit in your tagine.

Also, if you don't want to go to the trouble of making preserved lemons about 4-8 weeks ahead of time for this dish, you can substitute the rind of 2 lemons, but you'll be missing some of the interesting bitter undertones in the dish that come from the preserving process.

Chicken and Preserved Lemon Tagine (Preserved Lemon recipie below)
5-6 chicken thighs, bone in, but you can take the skin off if you want.
2 tablespoons of high-smoke point vegetable oil, like canola or peanut
1/2 large onion, yellow or red, sliced into strips (rings that have been halved)
3 cloves of garlic, either minced, crushed, or sliced thinly
1 preserved lemon, skin only, sliced into thin strips, recipe follows; if you don't have preserved lemons you can use the rind of 2 lemons plus 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
salt
pepper
3 cloves
1/2 teaspoon of tumeric
1/4 teaspoon saffron
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
heavy pinch dill
1/2 cup or so of broth, preferably chicken or vegetable, not beef though
2 teaspoons of ground sumac berries (optional, available through specialty spice houses)

Ok, if you don't have a tagine don't worry. You can easily substitute a dutch oven or other stove-top safe braising apparatus (heavy bottom saucepan with tight fitting lid, etc.) for the tagine. If you want to use a crock pot, you'll have to do this in two steps, browning and sauteeing in one pan and then transfer to the crock pot for the long time braising. The rest of my instructions will refer to the tagine only, but you should be able to figure out how to do this in another pan. If not, post a message and I'll get back to you.

First, put the two tablespoons of oil into the tagine and heat over medium high heat. Clean your chicken thighs and remove the skin if you desire. Pat the chicken dry and season the chicken lightly with salt and pepper. When the oil starts to shimmer add the chicken, skin side down. Don't move the chicken for about 5-6 minutes. Turn the chicken over and allow to brown on the other side for 5-6 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside in a bowl. This chicken is not fully cooked, you were just browning it for flavor and appearance later.

Keeping the bottom of the tagine over medium-high heat, add your onion and garlic. Reduce the heat to medium and stir, trying to loosen the bits on the bottom of the pan. When the edges of the onion start to become translucent, add the thin strips of preserved lemon, cloves, and tumeric and stir. Don't use the flesh or pith of the lemon as it's really salty and bitter. The magic is in the rind. Keep stirring gently for about 5 minutes, being careful to keep the spices from burning. Increase the heat to high and add the saffron, oregano and dill and stir them in. You'll need to stir this over high heat for about 1 minute. Then carefully add the broth (it should boil pretty vigorously), stir in most of the sumac, place the chicken on top of the onion and spice mixture, and sprinkle the chicken with the rest of the sumac. DON'T STIR at this point. Reduce the heat to low and cover the bottom of the tagine with the top (the hat, as my Bigfoot friends sometime call it). If you're not using a tagine, this is the time to put your snug-fitting lid in place.

Allow this to slowly cook over low low heat for 1 hour. DON'T PEEK. Don't lift the lid off. You'll lose a lot of heat and some of the essential oils from the spices.

After one hour, take off the cover and serve. I like this with jasmine rice or, even better, couscous. This feeds 2 Yeti, or 4 people with a nice salad.


Ok, here's the Preserved Lemons recipe. You need to make these about 4-8 weeks before using. Don't blame me if you didn't read this before starting the tagine recipe above. It's your own fault, silly person.

Preserved Lemons
3-4 lemons
4 tablespoons salt
hot brine solution (2 cups hot water with 2 tablespoons of salt dissolved in it)
clean jam / preserving jars

Cut each lemon into quarters. Press 1 tablespoon of salt into each lemon, about 1/4 tablespoon per quarter of lemon. Put each piece into a clean preserving jar. When finished, pour the hot brine solution over the lemons, making sure the lemons are submerged. You can submerge the lemons if they float with a crumpled bit of clean parchment paper if you need to. Screw on the lids for the jars, allow to cool, and store them in the fridge for at least 4 weeks before using.

See, wasn't that easy? When you use the preserved lemons, you'll want to only use the rind, trimming off and discarding the flesh.

Enjoy!

Upcoming food lab post

Yetis are lazy during the week.

Ok, so the next post will be two posts in one! What do you want for nothing, rubber biscuit?

Nope, it will be:

Chicken Tagine!
Preserved Lemons for use in the Chicken Tagine!

Stay tuned for the chicken in the scary hat-like contraption that can also be done in a crock pot! Yes, the contraption can be done in a crock pot! Wonders and miracles of science abound!

Sharp and savory sage butter noodles - great with lamb

Ok, when the Yeti wife and I were on vacation a while ago, we ate at a restaurant that had some sage noodles on the ala carte menu. I thought that they looked interesting and I tried them. Well, boy, was I disappointed. Everything else on the menu was pretty good, and also since this was a classic-style French bistro I expected the noodles to follow suit. But, alas, poor me! No good buttery sage noodles for this Yeti. The noodles were very tough and overworked, and the taste of the buttery sage sauce was very underwhelming and disappointing. Oh, woe is me! Ahem, well, ok, they were disappointing but the rest of the meal was pretty good.

Now, when I got home, I decided that I could do much better. So, here is a sauce for egg noodles that is delicate, savory, and just a little sharp thanks to a little acid from some lemon juice. And the snowdogs didn't go with us on vacation that time, but they would have liked it. Instead they went to snowdog spa.

Sharp and savory sage butter noodles

Ok, you'll want to make the sauce before cooking the noodles otherwise your noodles will probably be overcooked. This makes enough for coating about 12-16 ounces of pasta.

2 medium shallots or 1/4 white onion, small dice. Preferably the shallots.
1 tablespoon of butter for the shallots / onion. You can use olive oil if you want but the texture and flavor won't be quite the same. If you use olive oil, use the cheap stuff and not your virgin first cold press good stuff.
heavy pinch of salt, about 1/8 teaspoon
1 tablespoon of butter
2 teaspoons of flour
3-4 fresh sage leaves, slightly bruised and chiffonade (cut into ribbons) or 1 teaspoon dried sage leaves, crushed
1/4 cup dry white wine or light stock, chicken or something similar. I prefer wine for this, but you can use something else if you don't want the residual alcohol.

1/4 cup of water from cooking your pasta
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1 more teaspoon or so of butter
white or black pepper, to taste, optional
couple of tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley, optional

12-16 ounces of packaged egg noodles or, preferably, a batch of your home-made noodles rolled thin and cut into 1/2 inch wide ribbons. Mmm, yummy.
Salt for your pasta water.

Ok, this recipe takes a little bit of coordination so you may want to read through this before starting it. Choose a heavy bottomed saucier or saucepan big enough for your noodles that is big enough for holding all your cooked noodles with the sauce. In your saucepan or a saucier place one tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add the shallots / onion and sweat over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Also add your heavy pinch of salt, about 1/8 teaspoon, at this point. You want the shallot to be translucent and soft, but not to have any color. You're not sauteeing here. Then add the other tablespoon of butter and the flour. You're going to make a thin roux. Whisk this flour and butter/shallot mixture over medium heat until the flour is well incorporated in the butter. Keep whisking this mixture over medium heat slowly but steadily for about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the sage and mix. Add the 1/4 cup of wine or other liquid and bring to a boil. When the mixture reaches a boil, whisk one more time and remove from the heat.

Cook your pasta to your preferred doneness. Reserve about 1/4 cup of the pasta water and then drain the pasta without rinsing it. Add this pasta water and the lemon juice (here's your acid tangy sharpness) to the sauce, return to a boil, and allow to boil for about 30 seconds and then add the final teaspoon of butter for a nice smooth texture. If you want your sauce to be thicker, allow it to boil for another 30 seconds or so. Toss your pasta with the sauce and serve. You can crack black pepper (or use a pinch of white pepper if you want to be all Frenchified fancy with it) over it to taste. Just a little though, as this is all about the sage and butter. Toss with parsley if desired and serve.

Serves 1 hungry Yeti, or 2 Yetis as a side dish, or 4 people.

Stuffed Chicken no more! At least not today. Red meat!

Everybody likes chicken. Well, some Yetis and people don't like chickens, and therefore eat lots of chicken. Stuffed chicken seems to be very popular. For instance, see my post about a bunch of different ways to stuff chicken from October in 2007. Well, too bad for you. Today's post is about meat. Meat meat meat meat meat. Red meat of the beef variety that comes from cow type animals. Yetis like the occasional meat dish. Not too often, but once in a while is nice.

I will share with you one of the simplest and best ways to cook a steak. Or at least I think so. So did James Beard. No grills needed, only a iron pan of some sort and a few other ingredients, including red meat. Oh, and the snowdogs like red meat. But they prefer sheep kind of red meat to cow kind.

Pan-fried steak in butter. Just like the French. Yes, the French are pan-fried in butter.

You'll need a nice steak. Preferably at least choice if not prime, perhaps a rib-eye or strip steak, or mmm, T-bone with both the Porterhouse and filet pieces still intact. You could even age them in your fridge, but I'm not going into that here. I'm assuming a 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick steak.
1 tablespoon butter. Or olive oil, but the recipe title says butter.
salt
fresh cracked black pepper

Prepare your steak. Trim off excess fat, rinse, and pat dry. You don't need to go nuts with the trimming of the fat if you have a nice piece. Place your cast-iron or other heavy bottom pan over medium high heat. If it's not a heavy bottom pan this won't work well as a thin pan will not hold enough latent heat to keep the steak cooking evenly. Allow the pan to reach a high temperature. Season the meat on both sides with salt and pepper. Add the butter or oil to the pan and as soon as either the butter begins to foam or the oil shimmers, add the steak. Now, you're probably going to want to move the steak around. DON'T MOVE THE STEAK. Just leave it there for a few minutes, 3-4 for a medium rare 1/2 inch thick or 5-6 for an inch-thick steak. Using tongs, not a fork, shame on you for reaching for that fork, flip your steak. Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes more or 5-6 minutes for a thicker piece.

Use your tongs to take the steak out of the pan and let it rest on a nice warm plate before serving. You can also always make a nice sauce out of the pan juices, but that's a different story. Ok, well, you can add a teaspoon of butter, stir it in the pan with the juices and oil, add some pepper and a pinch of salt, stir constantly and cook for 3-4 minutes, then add 1/2 cup of red wine or beef stock and have a nice pan sauce, but that's just an option. Or sauté some onions or mushrooms. Or top your steak with a nice bit of herbed butter or blue cheese. You get the idea.

This serves about 1 Yeti per 3 steaks, or 1 steak per person. You may want to have about 4 ounces of steak per person as a reasonable portion size, but lots of people eat more steak than that even if it's not good for them to do so.

Yetis have to catch their red meat, so we work for it. Snowdogs too.