Slow Oven BBQ Ribs with Spicy Broccoli-Potato Salad

Barbeque ribs made in my kitchen oven on a cold, cold day made it seem like...well, somewhat nearer to summer, let's say!

 In the middle of of the winter, I become entranced with the idea of summer food.  I crave hamburgers on the grill eaten outside at the picnic table.  I adore the idea of Sangria and a big crab salad.  (I have the opposite reaction when in mid-July I crave beef stew. Every year.)

38 Power Foods, Week 29 -- Pecans -- Light Winter Vegetable Gratin with Savory Granola

Each Friday, a wonderful group of women reaches across cyberspace and joins culinary hands to salute one very healthy food, one single beautiful ingredient from Power Foods : 150 Delicious Recipes with the 38 Healthiest Ingredients.  (Scroll down for the list of blogs.)
 

I won't say it's not a challenge to come up to that gorgeous plate each week.  If I'm busy learning music for church or have my daughter home, or am busy with the soup book, I sometimes can't give the opportunity the intelligent focus and attention it deserves.  I used one great recipe for more than one blog recently....life can get ahead of me sometimes.  Hopefully I'm forgiven!

Streamlined Beef Burgundy with Vegetables

 
In St. Paul, there's a high below 1 degree Fahrenheit today.  It was -14 degrees when I got up and pressed the button for coffee this morning.  I stayed home, cried throughout the inauguration, and did what any self-respecting, frozen food blogger would do.  I made beef burgundy...or boeuf bourguignon...  If you can spell it, you can make it.   

The inauguration poet, Richard Blanco's poem, "One Today" was one of the highlights for me.  The other was James Taylor singing "America the Beautiful," of course.  The speech was so, so fine.    

ANYWAY....After all the stir! about Julie and Julia for all that time....and all the hype about boeuf bourguignon, I think we may have come down to earth.  I no longer hear neighbors rolling the name of the dish around their hungry tongues and the Meryl Streep or Amy Adams talk is long past the appetizing roles of Julia and Julie.  For the record, I'd love a whole movie about Julia starring Meryl Streep. Sadly director Nora Ephron last year crossed the river and is now surely writing all kinds of wonderful things God doesn't require her to any longer sell.

Chicken and Carrot Stew

Happy New Year!

While I seldom blog recipes from other places, this easy chicken stew from Bon Appétit is luscious and makes a quick change from my typical  winter beef or lamb stews.  I've made it a time or two for friends, fixing it mostly beforehand, adding the cream right before serving.  A scoop of rice and some fresh, sauteéd spinach make for a healthier and well-rounded meal and even lowers the price per serving.  However, not to fear:  this recipe uses inexpensive chicken thighs to start with.

 My kitchen is still a Christmas kitchen--tins full of cookies, crocks full of nuts.  Leftovers in the frig. Christmas dishes in the cupboard.  On and on.  I'm really still in holiday mode and am not back to a regular routine of grocery shopping, cooking, writing, blogging, choir rehearsals, etc.  It is only the tenth day of Christmas (10 Lords-a-leaping!) and I celebrate all twelve days of Christmas plus Epiphany.   Come Sunday night (January 6--Epiphany), you'll find a table full of people at my house, still decorated, come to have one last, light Christmas romp complete with games. 

38 Power Foods, Week 25 -- Dried Beans -- French Beans with Smoked Sausage and Chicken

Nothing like the fragrance of rosemary for remembrance filling the house in December.

 I'm not a cheap cook, but I have always looked for inexpensive ways to provide our daily bread.  Raising a house full of kids, I often had no choice.  Even today, when we're empty nesters with a bit more funds than when the kids were home, I look for ways to save a bit here and there because it's the right thing to do.  It's often healthy, too.   I buy the best I can find for the least amount of money.  If you've ever cooked for a soup kitchen, or worked in a food pantry, you'll know that beans go a long way, are low in calories, and high in fiber.  They're filling and versatile.  They can also be yummy.  Hence this pot of smokey-fragrant "French" beans with lots of

• smoked ham (or pork chop)
• vegetables,
• big flavors of rosemary, thyme, and bay, 
• browned chicken thighs, legs, (I like Kadejan chicken from Glenwood, MN) and...
• sausage pieces.

Winter Squash-Mushroom Salad with Sherry-Truffle Oil Vinaigrette

There are meals when the main course is light, delicate -- a brothy-frothy soup  or a small piece of white fish with a few vegetables.  Or maybe you just have some squash leftover you'd like to make into a pretty "meaty" meal. On the other hand, this would also be a decidedly different and total side for a few great slices of pork loin or a lovely duck breast over the holidays.  If any of those things is the case or even if none is, this is your salad.

It starts with cooking a whole acorn squash and about half of a normal-sized butternut squash (I do both in the microwave for recipes like this.*) If you like, a Hubbard or a Turban squash could be used instead.   Let the squash cool a bit and then peel and cut it into one-inch pieces.  Meantime, a few mushrooms are sautéed, stirred into the squash pieces, and gathered together  with a decadent vinaigrette.  A bit of cheese,  a handful of fresh spinach and arugula, some chopped nuts for crunch and  you have your salad.  Couldn't be easier, quicker, or more luscious.  So winter.  So warming.  So if you're cooking squash one night for dinner, fix an extra couple so you have have this the next day.   Here's how:

Beans and Cornbread -- Cold Day Supper

I don't know if Friday Night "Dinner and a Movie" is still on. Last time I tuned in, it offered decent film viewing as well as little vignettes and cooking segments presented by talented folk.  The music was the late 40's jump tune (Louis Thomas Jordan), "Beans and Cornbread!"  Loved it.  I don't know what it is about the phrase...  Once you hear it, you just start walking around going, "Beans and cornbread uh uh uh...Beans and cornbread..."  The "uh uh uh" is the tenor sax.

Guinness Beef Pot Pie with Cheddar-Dill Biscuits or I'm So Full I Don't Know Where I'm Going to Sleep Tonight

Made in a deep, heavy 8 quart cast iron pot with a  lid  (Dutch oven)

Last year around this time, I made a pot roast with big pieces of butternut squash and halved onions in the oven.  A day later I took the leftovers, including the gravy, and made stew.  Stew from leftovers is definitely an improvement over freshly made stew.   There's a deeper, fuller, and more flavorful rich quality--without question.  It's just that there's usually less than when you make a fresh pot. That stew made very quickly with the addition of more onions, celery, and Guinness stout, etc., was divine.   I mean it, it was an incredible stew.

No who knows totally why one time things are so scrumptious you want more and more -- and another time (same ingredients and method apparently) it's like, "This is ok. Yeah, we can eat dinner here."  Perhaps it's the quality of the meat (in the case of stew) or maybe it's a little pixie dust.  Your taste buds might be on their "A" game so that you are able to season the pot in an extraordinary way.   Truly, I just don't know.  I know when I'm tired -- really exhausted-- the meal prepared under those circumstances is plebian.  I just did that recently, so I know.  I know when I don't give something my undivided attention that it's bound to be less interesting.  (As in the kids are hungry-throw a bunch of cut-up chicken in the oven and make some rice for God's sake.)

Pie 101 - Derby Pie

"Derby" Pie or  Pecan-Chocolate-Bourbon Pie.  Can you say decadent?

When someone needs something baked, I do it if I can.  If I have the time.  Not everyone bakes.  I love to bake and need an excuse now that there are only two of us in the house.  If I bake for an event, I somehow always manage to make enough so that we can share a sample or even have a tiny sweetness for ourselves.  (If it's pie, it's usually for Dave; I eat a bite, that's it.  He loves pie too much for me to eat much.)

(Aside:  After I saw how many people read my basic Pie 101 post, I thought I'd begin a series (quite intermittent) on pies.  I hope  you like them.  Anywho, read on.)

50 Women Game-Changers in Food - #44- Nigella Lawson - Guinness Gingerbread

A tender, quite moist gingerbread from Nigella.

Gingerbread is Christmas, right?  Maybe New Year's Day?  Certainly a cold-weather dessert.  Except that I love it.  I'd eat it in July if I were willing to turn the oven on.  Which I'm not.*  So that's why it's April and there's Nigella Lawson's gorgeous Guinness Gingerbread on the blog. (Two "n's" and two "s's" in Guinness--tells you  alot about how much I know about Guinness.  I did tour the brewery in Dublin once and actually drank a tall one.)  If you've been following along on this trip, I've joined a group of great food bloggers who are each week cooking, testing, and writing about one of Gourmet Live's 50 Women Game-Changers.  And, you guessed it, this week (number 44) is Nigella's week--I'm so grateful.  After all, I needed a reason to make gingerbread in the spring.  Didn't I? (Cold and nasty in St. Paul today after a great, warm spring.  I was happy to have a warm kitchen.)
   *I have just installed a combination microwave/convection oven above my range.  This may help with summer baking.  More later!

50 Women Game-Changers in Food - #35 - Delia Smith

Would you cook with this woman?  Meet Delia Smith.

In North America, we might argue over who taught us to cook.  While Julia really was on tv, I'm sure I learned to cook from a. my mother, b. James Beard, and c. SILVER PALATE.  (We all teach ourselves right in our kitchen, don't we?)  But in the UK, there's no question about who taught you to cook; Delia Smith, #35 in Gourmet's 50 Women Game-Changers in Food, did.  (photo courtesy BBC)

No Reservations (Valentine's Day at Home)

Alyce's Tuna with Marinara and Spinach with Onions*

 
To get you in the mood, kick off with Van Morrison's "Moondance."  
Or, if you'd rather, "Someone Like You."
          Note: If you right click on the song title, you can open youtube in another window and keep the music playing.......................................
                    
If you'd rather just order pizza (I know you!) and watch a movie, stop here and look at the best movies of 2011 and call for delivery.   Wow, that was a short blog!   But...if you're in the mood for food at home, read on.

Since everyone and their mother is now a food or wine writer, it's a bit crazy to see just how many articles there are about cooking for Valentine's Day or drinking for Valentine's Day.   "I Wine You to Wine Me," is out from Wine Spectator.  Phew.   The desserts, the bubblies...  It's all somewhat odd, eh?  Because the word has always been that one goes OUT for Valentine's Day--something I've seldom done.  Why?  Too crowded, too expensive, and rushed food.  Enough reasons?  I will admit, however, that if you have children of any age in the house, going out looks better and better.  Who wants to be searing a great piece of salmon while your loved one lights the candles only to be confronted with a dirty diaper, a bloody nose, a soccer practice, or a boyfriend crisis?
 

The only kids now at home sleep under the table!

Women Game-Changers in Food- #33-Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer-Meatballs with Mint and Parsley

What if you wanted beautifully written recipes, tastefully conceived, and perfectly photographed--all from home cooks--for home cooks?

What if you wanted those cooks to have worked professionally (catering, restaurants, magazines) and to have traveled the world so they could bring the best dishes back to you?

Order book here

Enter Canal House Cooking, La Dolce Vita,  #7  in a series of self-published  volumes from a multi-talented duo who have worked at food, cooking, and food writing/photography most of their lives.  After leaving behind the corporate publishing/food world in order to spend more time at or near their homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Melissa Hamilton (above, right) and Christopher Hirsheimer (above, left; she's a she) began cooking together daily in a warehouse and keeping a record of it.   Out of that commitment comes this lovely, popular series of books that is their gift to those of us in the home-cooking "business."   An article from WSJ tells the story more thoroughly here.

To really get to know these women a little more, watch an enchanting tiny video about them and their food in Italy (basis for the most recent book)....Here.
 

Alyce's Lamb Shanks on Mashed Ginger Rutabaga and Next Day Lamb Stew

I like a pasta bowl for lamb shanks and sides...sit them up in the rutabagas to show them off.

 If you're a bit unsure about lamb shanks... what they are or how to cook them, here's the deal:  they're pretty much like cooking a tiny pot roast on a big old bone.  Whatever treatment you've given beef chuck roast is probably going to work with lamb shanks--which are from way up on the lamb's leg.  Since the meat is tough, it needs to be braised (cooked in liquid) and the braising liquid of choice is often wine, though it needn't be.  A stiff stout would work, as would broth, tomatoes, cider and water...whatever floats your shanks.  Add root vegetables and/or onions, celery, garlic, and you've an entire meal.   Even just onions and wine with a bit of dried rosemary will give you something well worth eating.  Most recipes call for two lamb shanks per person; there isn't a lot of meat on one.  I find that given the vegetables and sauce inevitably cooked with them that one is plenty.

50 Women Game-Changers Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, #32 - Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog

 
 Big bunch of bacon. (This is good.  I'm married to someone who eats anything with bacon.)  Next:  tons of onions.  Rice. Lots of shrimp, ahhh.  All cooked together in one lovely mess called a bog.  For those of us with no real connection to the south-eastern coastal states, a bog brings to mind cranberries in Maine or Wisconsin, even.  Or being stuck at work, as in:  "I'm all bogged down writing that article."  But this bog, this "Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog," is just what it sounds like:  mounds of steamed shrimp mixed up on top of a velvety oh-so-thick tomatoed, oniony, spicy rice--perfect for brunch or a lunch bunch.  If the words "comfort food" weren't so over-used and so inappropriate (comfort food being food you had a gazillion times as a kid...), I'd call this comfort food extraordinaire.  Comfort food x100.

Just for fun, here's the wikipedia definition of a bog:   A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens.

Food for thought, I'd say.  Read on: