well, that worked out pretty well

Sunday: Braised White Beans; sauteed greens; bread. Apple Sharlotka for dessert.

I made all the recipes pretty much as-written.

For the braised beans: It took about 45 minutes on medium-high before I was satisfied with the beans' caramelization. They smelled amazing - the finished recipe was good, but wasn't quite able to live up to their initial aroma. I added about 1.5 Tbsp strong Dijon mustard, lots of salt, a bit of better-than-bouillon (chicken flavor), and a bunch of pepper. I ended up simmering the beans for just under two hours (I started with the saddest looking bag of discount beans from the grocery store, but then soaked them for two days. YMMV.)

The greens were a bunch of semi-random greenery that had been floating around the fridge - a half-bag of Trader Joe's prewashed greens that I picked up in a moment of panic on Christmas Day and a bag of greens from last week's farmer's market excursion. I cut up a single strip of bacon, fried it 'til crispy, and then cooked two garlic cloves a bit before adding the greens, some smoked paprika, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. I added some water to steam, and kept cooking 'til we were ready to eat.

Because we decided (somewhat last minute) to have someone over for dinner, I made Smitten Kitchen's Apple Sharlotka as well. I LOVE this recipe, and I don't even know if I cooked it enough. Was it really supposed to be creamy in the center and crisp around the edges? Does it matter? It was delicious, and I'll definitely be making this again. But for the time it takes to cut up the apples, it's very low-effort, and the ingredients are minimal.

I can't speak for my dinner companions, but for me, this meal was a total success.

Menu for week of 1/22/2012

Sunday
Monday
Wednesday 
Friday
Saturday

Sweet Potato Noodle Kugel

I originally clipped this recipe from a magazine many years ago, and I've been making it ever since. Sadly, I don't think it would ever be kosher for our seder table (I've never found kosher-for-Passover egg noodles; more importantly, we eat meat at that meal, so the sour cream & butter make this dish a no-go). I sometimes make it with peach jam, since often I make more of that than apricot; it's good either way.

snowed in

We're having a cozy few days as we wait for the roads to clear. Fortunately, I had planned a couple of fairly elaborate meals, so we've been eating well *and* keeping ourselves entertained.

First, a pair of recipes from the always-awesome Smitten Kitchen: carrot soup with miso and scallion meatballs with soy-ginger glaze. These were both wonderful and pretty dang easy to make. The glaze was so good that V kept trying to think of new uses for it (he tried it on ice cream, but unfortunately he said it made the ice cream taste "like blood").

Last night we made chicken stew with sweet potato biscuits. I couldn't quite bring myself to use all the butter called for in the chicken stew recipe, but made it with a single stick of butter instead. Also definitely a recipe I'll be making again (though hopefully in a situation where we won't be required to eat it all ourselves....).

Shafers' Goosh Buns

I got this recipe from a friend, who got it from someone in her husband's family. I suspect that there are many similar recipes floating around, but this one is perfection itself (in that it reminds me - in a wonderful way - of elementary school lunches where this would be called "barbecue on bun"):

Goosh Buns

• 1 1/2 lbs ground beef
• 1 14-oz bottle catsup
• 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp vinegar
• 2 Tbsp prepared mustard

Brown meat and saute onion and pepper. Add remaining ingredients and simmer.

yield: 6 servings

Impulse Purchases

Monday: crispy brussels sprouts with sriracha; baked sweet potatoes

We were armed with our usual list when we went to the farmer's market yesterday, but Victor was beguiled by some beautiful brussels sprouts and I decided I couldn't leave without some of the world's best sweet potatoes. Tonight I was planning to make some slow-cooked beef shanks, but didn't get the slow cooker going in time, so I was glad we had something extra around to make.

I used a hybrid of these two recipes for the sprouts - lots of stove-top cooking (in bacon fat) while the potatoes roasted, then a quick deglaze/steam with a sriracha/lime/honey mixture. The sweet-spicy flavor of the sprouts also complemented the sweet potatoes, though the ones from Lydell Farms are so sweet that they really don't need any additional flavoring.

What I did on my "summer" vacation...

Wow, it's been... a long time. There's been a lot of cooking, much of which I no longer remember well enough to identify individual recipes. I've found myself coming back to the blog to try to find things I've made and then realising that I never recorded the recipe I was looking for in the first place. To help remedy that, I'm going to post what I can remember now, and maybe add to it later. This website is, after all, primarily intended as a memory prompt for myself.

Without further ado, the recipe backlog:

From Tasty:
I haven't had the best luck with this cookbook, but told V that I'd give it one more shot before I donate the book. I think it's possible that the author likes a different set of flavors than I do, since everything I've made from it has tasted just slightly less good than I'd like.

• pot roast with porcini and beer -- I might have used too dark a beer, or maybe I just don't like the taste of beer in stew, but I wouldn't make this again.
• real good meat loaf -- not nearly as good as my favorite meatloaf recipe, and a lot more work. Also not worth making again.
  
• roasted tomato soup with grappa and orange -- this was delicious until I added the orange juice (and I didn't have grappa, so my version was NA, too). I'd make it again, but omitting the orange zest/juice.
  

Ham Tetrazzini from The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook. I also used the base sauce from the tetrazzini to make tuna noodle casserole several times.

"Goosh" Buns - recipe from my friend Kerrie, these are what we Pennsylvanians would call barbecue (known to the rest of the country as "sloppy joes").

From Vegetarian Suppers: I continue to love this cookbook, and have made my favorite recipes from it many, many times.

• Tofu & Sugar Snap Peas in lemon grass broth: my first total misfire from this cookbook, the recipe was just as bland as it sounds
• Seared Tofu & Mushroom Saute: I know I made this, but can't remember anything about it
• Brown Rice Supper with tofu, roasted peanut sauce, and stir-fried carrots: surprisingly flavorful & delicious

From Appetite for Reduction: A new (to me) cookbook that's been mostly good so far.

• Upside-Down Lentil Shepherd's Pie: yum, though not really a shepherd's pie
  
• Mushroom & Cannellini Paprikas: also yum, but I don't remember much about it other than that V & I polished off the entire recipe for dinner (says it serves 4...)
  

Chicken & Fennel Pot Pie: adapted from As American As Apple Pie to use the pie crust we learned to make in a pie class we took summer 2010; also, I had leftover chicken, not turkey for the pie. It was delicious - possibly one of my favorite things that I've ever made.

So - there we go! I have clearly neglected to list more recipes than I've remembered here, but I'm hoping to remedy that as I run across them again (between bookmarks and stray sheets of online printouts, I'm bound to see at least some of them). And some of the recipes mentioned above deserve a full write-up (especially that delicious pot pie!), so I will try to catch up at some point.