Stay at Stove Dad

Sardines, a Quick and Easy Lunch Unless You've Been to Art School

I wanted to write about the savory rabbit stew that I made while on vacation in Lake Placid, but I’ve encountered a small problem. I know I’m a food blogger, but I often get so hungry after making a meal that I forget to photograph it before I’ve eaten it. So it was with the rabbit stew. I don't have a decent photo of it.

I have some nice shots of the early steps, such as when I was sautéing the leeks and adding the mushrooms (are you hooked, yet?), but none of the actual rabbit stew. So I’ve decided to draw a picture to represent the dish, but I won’t get to that until over the weekend.

In the meantime, I do have a nice snapshot of one of the lunches I ate while away: sardines, bread, olives, and pistachios. I was inspired to try sardines after reading a chapter on them in a lovely book I recently came across, “What We Eat When We Eat Alone: Stories and 100 Recipes,” by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin. The two are husband and wife, and the husband is an illustrator. The book is an entertaining collection of stories and recipes, but what I liked best were the drawings. In the chapter about sardines, McFarlin admits that he can no longer eat them—he had too many, too often, when he was in art school.

I never had the chance to go to art school, so when I swallow one of the salty and oily fillets, I engage in a bit of play. I pretend I’m in art school, and that makes them taste all the better.

I mention the meal because lately I’ve been bringing lunch to work to save money. I think a couple of slices of bread, some sardines, and a side of olives and nuts will soon become a staple of my diet. Art school was always something I wanted to go to.

What quick, easy, and healthy lunches do you make for yourself, if any? I could use a few more ideas.  

Croque Monsieur

I was making lunch for Nina and Pinta yesterday, and our options were limited. At least that's what Nina thought. I had cooked up a batch of dhal, but that only satisfied Pinta. Her older sister wanted a grilled cheese, but we were short on cheddar, so that made things difficult. Santa Maria suggested using Parmesan, but I didn't think that would quite work.

Nina had a solution. "What about gruyère?" she said, "does that melt well?"

"Yes, it does," I said, remembering that we had a bit in the fridge.

"And can you make that sandwich with the ham and two pieces of bread?" she asked.

"A Croque Monsieur?" I said. "Yes, we can. We do have ham and gruyère."

She started to run around the house crying "Croque Monsieur, Croque Monsieur, Croque Monsieur!"

And so it was. We had Croques Monsieurs for lunch. Along with the dahl.

 

Croque Monsieur

• A few slices of ham
• Two pieces of bread
• Butter
• A few slices of gruyère (or other cheese such as cheddar, which I combined with the gruyère because that's all we had on hand)

 

Sauté the ham until it is brown on each side.

While the ham is cooking, butter the bread on one side, and put it in a frying pan on low heat butter side up.

As soon as the bread is warm, but not toasted, flip it so the butter side is down.

Place cheese on each piece of bread, and put a slice (or more) of the ham on one side of the bread.

Flip one piece of bread so it makes a sandwich with the other, with the ham in the middle.

Toast on a low heat until the cheese is melted and the bread is toasted. Use a weight, such as a kettle, to compress the sanwich to speed things up.

Red Lentil Dhal Saves The Day

James Joyce's last words were "Does nobody understand?" I ocassionally think of this while trying to make plans with friends and family members. Despite, (or is it because of?) the ease of text messages, emails, Facebook postings, tweets, and other means of staying in touch, communicating with loved ones can be a little bit like modernist literature: utterly confusing.

So it was over the weekend, when plans with old friends suddenly coalesced around a midday walk in the park with the kids. To any ordinary human, this might seem perfectly sensible, but it sent my mind racing. I quickly wondered, “What will we eat? What can I serve them?”

Because I’m constantly obsessing about food, my larder is almost always well stocked (after my trip to the store this week, Santa Maria started a new shopping list with the words “NO MORE CHEESE” written atop it). After a moment’s thought, I conjured a quick answer: my old favorite, spicy red-lentil dhal. It takes less than an hour to make, and, after all, I already had a pot of rice cooked, and waiting, in the fridge.

Red Lentil Dhal

• Olive oil
• 1 onion quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise 
• 2 bay leaves 
• One 2 inch or so cinnamon stick 
• 2 teaspoons (or more) of minced fresh ginger 
• 3 cloves of garlic 
• 1 dash of cayenne pepper 
• 2 cups small red lentils, about a pound, rinsed
• 1 lemon, halved and juiced (seeds removed) 
• 3 or 4 cups of chicken stock 
• 3 or 4 cups of hot water  
• 1 teaspoon salt 

Heat the oil in a heavy sauce pan

Add the onion, bay leaves, and cinnamon stick

Saute until the onions are translucent

Add the garlic and the ginger and the cayenne

Continue cooking another few minutes

Add the lentils and stir to coat them with oil

Add the chicken stock and the water

Add the lemon juice and the squeezed halves of the fruit

Add the salt

Bring to a boil

Reduce to a simmer

Cook for about a half hour, until the onions mostly break up and the lentils more or less dissolve. If it looks like it needs more water, add some. 

Notes:

This freezes remarkably well. It is best served with rice. To make it more fancy, caramelize some onions to go on top, along with some plain yogurt, and some chopped cilantro. 

The Sound of Blood Sugar Rising

How certain behaviors are handed down through the generations is of great interest to me. I'm a legendarily bad-tempered hungry person. It runs in my family. My father was iritable when he was peckish. My siblings and I get "cranky" if our blood sugar dips for more than ten minutes. It's a terrible personality trait, but it can't seem to be helped. I'm tall and thin and well known for my high metabolism. This is clearly a genetic issue. Nina and Pinta? Here's how they are developing.

On Saturday, they went to a birthday party. I figured lunch would be served, at least pizza. It wasn't. Their midday meal consisted of cake with a cupcake chaser.

About forty-five minutes after we got home, a piece of chalk went astray on the floor, and this precipitated a series of sharp comments between the girls. Tears, and an "I-hate-my-sister" moment followed.

Don't ask me what happened. I was busy getting their lunch--grilled cheese, which I made using slices from the magical Leviathan loaf that I wrote about in yesterday's post about French Toast. I cut the bread extremely thin, and went for a high cheese-to-carbohydrate ratio, based on the theory that they had had plenty of calories that afternoon. What they needed was a bit of protein.

The girls eventually made it to the table and ate their lunch. Midway through their sandwiches, Pinta started reciting a nonsense word of her own devising, "bombacolupio." A few bites later, "bombacolupio" was a refrain in a duet they were singing. And by the time they had finished, there was a Bombacolupio dance, and a whole lot of laughter. Genetics at work?

Open-Face Grilled Cheese

• Slices of bread
• Slices of cheddar cheese

Place the bread on a baking sheet and lay the cheese slices on the bread.

Place under the broiler until the cheese has melted.

Created by Man: Leftovers

The refrigerator in our new apartment has a surprising feature—it beeps when the door is left ajar. We hear its high-pitched call every now and again, and, since we've lately been watching old episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" on Netflix, Santa Maria has taken to saying "Is that a Cylon?

The refrigerator also beeps when you stand in front of it with the door open for a while. If I had a teenage son, who might be inclined to stand there and drink milk from the spout of a gallon jug, the beeping might come in handy. As it is now, it just beeps at us when we're doing more mundane tasks, such as going through it to see what's on each shelf a week after shopping.

Last night, Santa Maria and I were doing just that, reviewing what was left in there, what needed to be thrown out, what could be frozen, and what could be eaten later. Shopping for a family is a tricky thing. Buy too little, and you'll find yourself short of a key ingredient on a cold weeknight. Buy too much, and you're wasting food and money.

I couldn't have foreseen the strep throat last week, and I neglected to consider what it would mean to be out of town shooting a video. Long story, short: I was left with a half-eaten roast chicken, two whole chickens, two pork loins, and a batch of Puttanesca. Clearly I had too much food on hand. What to do?

One of the chickens had a sell-by date of the 19th. I'll make soup with that. One of the tastiest chicken soups I ever made was with a stinky old bird, and I wouldn't mind replicating that experience. The other bird has a sell-by day of the 23rd, so I have time to cook that up later in the week. I froze the Puttanesca.

I picked the half-eaten roast chicken, and made a salad using a bit of celery, onion, fresh ginger, and lime. I plan on eating that for lunch today, and I'll let you know how it tastes. As for the beeping fridge, I think it would be most useful if it beeped when I was buying too much food. I hate to see anything go to waste. How do you all handle the big shop, leftovers, and having too much food on hand?

 

 

 

Sweet Talking: A Lentil Bulgur Soup Recipe

Long before I was married, I had a dream of what my domestic life would eventually look like. I saw a place where a large pot of something—a stew, a soup, a sauce—was always simmering on the stove. I’ve started to realize that vision, slowly.

When Pinta was very young, she had the charming habit of waking at about 5:00, and not going back to sleep. I would let Santa Maria stay in bed, and I would get up to take care of her. There was much I didn’t enjoy about this period of my life, but rising at that early hour gave me time to cook, which I liked.

These days, I’m better rested (we’re all better rested), but I have to scramble to get my cooking done. Lately, I’ve been making that big magical pot of food on the weekends.

One Saturday earlier this month, I made my dhal. Last Saturday, I made another old favorite, a Turkish lentil soup from the “Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant” cookbook. This lentil soup is different from any other that I’ve ever tasted. It is made with bulgur wheat, which releases a sweet and divine aroma when it is browned in the pan. Adding bulgur to the lentils makes for a complete protein, so the soup is very filling. It is seasoned with rosemary, and I just love it. Finished with fresh spinach, it really is a complete meal.

My girls, on the other hand, don’t care for it. They prefer Progresso’s canned lentil soup. They haven’t been reacting well to what I’ve been serving lately, but it won’t stop me from making good food for them. I tried using an immersion blender to puree the soup and its onions, but I wouldn’t suggest that. It made the soup look ugly and taste a bit weird. Pinta wasn’t fooled, and she chose not to eat any. She went hungry. Nina ate a bit (the blended version didn’t taste that bad), but she wasn’t really keen on it.

Earlier, when the soup was simmering, I took down a can of the Progresso soup and read the label to Nina. It’s a very healthy soup (aside from any BPA concerns), but I was surprised to read that sugar is among its ingredients. I shouldn’t have been. Many commercial foods cheat with a bit of sugar to hook the consumer. When I gave Nina my Turkish lentil soup, she tasted it and said, “It needs sugar, dad.” Believe, me, it doesn’t.

Turkish Lentil Bulgur Soup

• 1 cup lentils
• 5 cups water (or chicken or vegetable stock)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Olive Oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• A dash cayenne
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup raw bulgur
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 28-ounce can peeled plum tomatoes
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• Pinch of dried rosemary
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 cups washed baby spinach

 

Rinse the lentils and bring them to a boil in the salted water or stock. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, for about forty minutes.

While the lentils are cooking, heat the olive oil in a heavy soup pot and saute the onions until they are translucent.

Add the garlic, cayenne, bay leaves, and bulgur. Stir, until the onions and bulgur are lightly browned.

Mix in the tomatoes and parsley.

Pour the cooked lentils into the pot.

Add the tomato paste and rosemary.

Simmer for another 15 minutes or so; until the lentils are tender. If the soup looks too dry, add some boiling water or hot stock.

Remove the bay leaves and serve, stirring the fresh spinach into the soup (I do this in each serving bowl) until it wilts. Garnish with more parsley, if you would like.

 

 

 

How to Open an Oyster

My post about oyster chowder prompted a friend of mine to say, “once I go to all the trouble (and usually, bloodshed) of shucking oysters, the last thing I want to do is cook them!” Every time I open oysters now, this rings in my ears.

And his words (especially “bloodshed”) got me to thinking that I treated the small but vital detail about how to open them a bit too lightly. So I made a 46-second video this afternoon. And I’d like to offer the following pointers.

First, start with small oysters. They’re much easier to open than large ones (when making the chowder with the six too-big-to-eat ones, I not only broke a sweat, but I seriously contemplated getting out a hammer and smashing one or two of them).

Second, wear gloves. Because I tend to get eczema on my hands, I do all my cooking while wearing heavy blue Nitrile gloves. (Also, if you’re not wearing gloves, you can stabilize the oyster while opening it by placing it on a dishcloth.)

Third, practice. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. I hope you like the video.

 

 

I bought a dozen and a half oysters today, and ate most of them for lunch with Santa Maria. I have six left over now, and I’m thinking about making a tomato-based oyster chowder. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

How Not to Make Quinoa Salad

In many ways, cooking for a family differs from running a restaurant, but in some ways it is similar. Restaurants serve several different entrees, and there have been nights when I'm deep into multiple dishes for each member of the family, such as when we have our seafood feast: Nina likes mussels, but Pinta does not. I try to limit the options each night, though. After all, I’m not trying to run a restaurant.

Both professional chefs and parents who cook also have to do more than one thing (or six things) at time. Chefs have training and develop skills to do this well. Take short order cooks. I learned a little bit about how their minds keep track of tasks from reading “The Egg Men,” Burkhard Bilger’s pulse-raising story about short-order breakfast cooks in Las Vegas, which ran in the Sept. 5, 2010 issue of The New Yorker (subscription required for the full article).

"Warren Meck, a neuroscientist at Duke University, has identified the neural circuitry that allows the brain to time several events at once. As it happens, short-order cooks are among his favorite examples. They’re like jugglers, he says, who can keep a dozen balls in the air at the same time. He calls them “the master interval timers.”
    Whenever a cook sets a pan on a griddle, Meck says, a burst of dopamine is released in the brain’s frontal cortex. The cortex is full of oscillatory neurons that vibrate at different tempos. The dopamine forces a group of these neurons to fall into synch, which sends a chemical signal to the corpus striatum, at the base of the brain. “We call that the start gun,” Meck says. The striatum recognizes the signal as a time marker and releases a second burst of dopamine, which sends a signal back to the frontal cortex via the thalamus—the stop gun. Every time this neural circuit is completed, the brain gets better at distinguishing that particular interval from the thousands of others that it times during the course of a day. An experienced cook, Meck believes, will have a separate neural circuit set up for every task: an over-easy circuit, an over medium circuit, a sunny-side-up circuit, and so on, each one reinforced through constant repetitive use."

In my case, I had a bit of trouble managing multiple tasks last night. I foolishly tried to roast the potatoes for my quinoa salad while at the same time trying to decide if acquiring a piece of real estate would be good move for my family. The house hunt is one thing that’s not giving me a dopamine rush, and I burned the potatoes.

Oysters Save the Day

This weekend I took charge of the children. Santa Maria was facing a major work deadline, and I told her that I would take care of things around the house. For me, this meant planning lunches and dinner. Saturday, I went to the greenmarket for fish. Flounder for dinner that night. Clams for dinner the next. Oysters for me.

Weekend lunches bedevil me. I reach my mental capacity planning two or three meals at a time. For Saturday lunch, I punted, and took the girls out to eat.

We’ve never been big on restaurants, partially because of the expense, and partially because I can cook better food at home than I can get at the restaurants I can afford. I’m not talking about a Per Se level of expense (though that was fun and memorable, from the black salt from Molokai to getting to drink my wine flight and most of Santa Maria's, the one time we went a few years ago and spent about a month’s rent on a meal), but I’d have to spend at least $75 a head to start tasting things that couldn’t come out of my kitchen.

There’s another reason we don’t eat out very often. Our children don’t really know how to behave in a restaurant. Once, while visiting the grandparents, I watched my preschool nieces and nephews sit patiently at a table at the Olive Garden while we pored over the menus. My kids didn’t know what to do with themselves. They wandered over to check out the food on other tables and gaze at the baffled diners.  Pinta began squealing and chasing Nina. Breadsticks became daggers. I’d like to think that they were protesting the chain restaurant (which is what I felt like doing), but the truth is less appealing. Because we eat at home, they haven’t had a chance to learn what do to while eating out.

We’re working on teaching them how to behave in a restaurant, and the only real opportunity we have to do so involves pizza. It’s the absolute surefire thing that they will both eat. And it’s best if I don’t make the pizza, as the one time I tried, I didn’t exactly succeed. A pizzeria is not necessarily the best school, however.

Our favorite low-priced option, Roma Pizza, is a typical slice joint, without waiter service (which is why we like it). The neighborhood’s go-to family pizza place, Two Boots, knows its clientele too well: kids are encouraged to run to the kitchen window, where the pizza makers toss raw dough to the kids to play with while they wait.

Campo de Fiori, which opened recently, is different. It serves slices, but they are unlike any other slices you will find in Brooklyn. Most New York City pizza is Neopolitan, round with a thin crust. Their pizza is Roman, square with a crisp but thick and airy crust.  The dough is made in Rome, frozen, and then flown to Brooklyn, where it is baked and topped with extremely fresh ingredients. Everything at the place tastes like what I would like to cook with at home. My favorite is the matriciana, full of smoky bacon and spicy tomato sauce.

I love the food at Campo de Fiori, but there’s another aspect of it that I like even more. The restaurant has a relaxed elegance. The décor is crisp, clean, and unassuming. The owners, Andrea and Yari, are welcoming hosts. I get to sit with my girls while they practice proper restaurant behavior. Andrea and Yari don’t use plastic cups. They have nice glasses. They serve the slices on little wooden planks. These little touches add up to a nice experience for me, and the girls. And apparently, I have a lot to learn myself about the Campo de Fiori. This New York Times review focuses on the pastas and other dishes that I have yet to try.

There’s one small point that makes it complicated for me to eat pizza, especially pizza as fancy and expensive as that at Campo de Fiori. It’s never really filling enough for me, unless I eat six or so pieces.

So, to prepare for my latest visit, I prepared a little snack before hand. I had six raw oysters from the Greenmarket. Raw oysters are one of life’s greatest pleasures, and they are very easy to make at home. The ones I ate on Saturday were the sweetest tasting ones I’ve ever had. I ate them in a rush, standing in my kitchen. I found a great video from Coastal Living magazine that explains how to open them. It is really very simple.

 

 

 

Cheating Heart: Leftovers are an Easy Way to Improve Quinoa Salad

I make a quinoa salad just about every week. Santa Maria loves it, and she eats it for lunch almost daily. It's a tasty, healthy, economical, and easy-to-prepare dish. One nice thing is that it keeps. If you don't dress it, the salad will stay reasonably fresh for days. Make it Sunday night; finish it Thursday at noon.

I usually eat it once a week, but I need more protein than it provides, so I often pair it with poached chicken, or whatever leftovers I might have on hand. Yesterday, I was in a rush and I supplemented it with some prepared and marinated soy bars from the coop (which we almost always have on hand) and half a ball of mozzarella cheese. The salad is so low fat that I always need to add something rich, such as bag of potato chips or a half an avocado, to really feel full. The cheese did the trick. Like the soy bars, it was approaching the end of its usable lifespan, having lingered in the refrigerator for more than a few days. I was happy to eat them (part of my job around the house is cleaning out the refrigerator, a task I take literally), but I would not suggest it on a regular basis. It didn't taste very good.

Today, however, was a completely different story. I had a bit of the quinoa salad left in my office refrigerator, and I paired it with a real delight. Last night, Santa Maria was out at a business dinner at Community Food & Juice, a restaurant on the Upper West Side. She had the steak of the day, a slab of "sustainably raised Piedmont beef," she called it. Now I don't know if she meant that it came from Italy or from the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. I do know, though, that she brought half of it home, and gave it to me. It was delicious. I sliced it up and had it, along with a bit of the restaurant's broccoli, with my quinoa salad. I couldn't have been more pleased.