Mumsbröd

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 8 comments

If my mom could see the recipe for this bread, she might say: ANY fool could do it, in a slightly scathing tone. Well fine. And yet, you would truly be a fool not to try it. “Mumsbröd” means “delicious bread” and for a very good reason. This bread is dark and somewhat sweet, moist and deeply flavorful, studded with sunflower seeds. The amazing thing is – it’s not even raised with yeast. When I looked closely at the recipe, I found it is very similar to Boston Brown bread but with much more varied and flavorful grains. 10 minutes to mix up, 1 1/2 hours to bake.

We were served this bread a couple of years ago in Stockholm at a traditional Swedish restaurant located in a large urban park. While we were sipping champagne at the grey striped table with a view over the green lawns, a lake and graceful trees (really, this was the greatest evening), the most incredible basket of bread arrived. There was plain rye, crisp bread, a beautiful white loaf and this dark moist looking one. Swedes really know bread. Ok, the French may be highly regarded for their baguette, but Swedes really explore all the different grains, particularly rye. Also, in Sweden, they process grains in many more ways.  You can find most grains cracked, flaked, sprouted and dried – or any number of other methods, that you would never see here. After one bite, we begged for the recipe. The waitress smiled and shrugged and came back with one all printed up so I guess people are always asking.

There are 6 kinds of grains in mumsbröd, including wheat, rye, graham, and something called “groddar” which is some kind of sprouted grain that I am still trying to figure out. The thing is, it doesn’t really matter as long as you don’t mess around with the amount of flour – which should include plain and rye – both easy to come by in the states. I did bring some cracked rye back from Sweden, but I am sure that cracked wheat would work. (or even cornmeal, which is what you find in Boston brown bread). There is a lot of kefir in the bread which must be responsible for the incredible moistness. The cracked rye gives it a wonderful chew.

Mumsbröd

I was making lentil soup this morning and was about to go to the store to buy bread to go with it, when I remembered I had been meaning to try this recipe. I am so glad I finally did. We all loved it. Buttered and with a warm bowl of soup it was hard to beat. The following morning we ate a buttered slice with a poached egg and a big cup of coffee – marvelous. Next time, I might try it with a tangy fresh cheese that I have been meaning to try making. It looks simple enough. In fact, I think any fool could do it. 😉

  • 3 1/4 c flour
  • 3/4 c rye flour
  • 1 c graham flour
  • 1/2 c wheat bran
  • 1 1/2 c cracked rye (or cracked wheat)
  • 1 1/4 tsp salt
  • 4 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 c molasses
  • 5 c kefir
  • 1/2 c sunflower seeds
  1. Preheat oven to 300 F.
  2. Whisk flour, rye, graham flour, wheat bran, cracked rye, salt and baking soda together in a large bowl.
  3. Thoroughly stir in molasses and kefir.
  4. Turn batter into 2 large bread pans and sprinkle with sunflower seeds, gently pressing them into the batter.
  5. Bake for 90 minutes.

I am going to continue researching the groddar. The closest product I have found so far is sprouted wheat flour, whereas in Sweden they buy the dried sprouts flaked. Nutritionally and as a flavor though, I bet the sprouted wheat flour would work fine. Also, since it seems to be easy to vary the ingredients in the bread, next time I might stir in a big handful of walnuts.  Or substitute oat bran for the wheat bran. And if I don’t get around to making that cheese, a room temperature Cambozola spread on top would be very nice.

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Pulled pork sandwiches – yes you can

Posted on February 8, 2010 | 1 comment

If there is anything that would stop me from becoming a vegetarian (okay, there are many things) one of them would be the pulled pork sandwich. And carnitas. And those little grilled pork skewers you get with rice noodles and salad at a Vietnamese restaurant. The carnitas and the pork skewers always seem to taste better in the restaurant but I think you can easily approximate barbecued pulled pork at home. A real grill master would certainly beg to differ and it’s true: true barbecue is grilled over hardwood and the smoke imparts flavor. I (lamely, I gather) grill mine on my gas grill.  The great thing about making it yourself though, is how easy it is. Although the actual pulling of the pork initially may seem a little arduous, the work is actually minimal considering that when you are done you will be able to feed 15 people.  It really pays.

Pulled pork sandwiches feel celebratory to me – I think this is because they are so extremely delicious. This year, for Martin’s birthday picnic on the ski slopes, I made pulled pork sandwiches with west North Carolina Barbecue sauce which as the author informs us, is the red, ketchup-y kind as opposed to the vinegary spicy type which is from east North Carolina. I put it all together the day before and we warmed it up on the portable grill of a friend, tailgate style in the parking area.

Yes, yes – a real grill master gets up at 4 am to start the fires and get the pork on but you don’t have to do that. I got the 5 lb Boston butt out of the refrigerator at 12 pm, let it come up to temperature for half an hour on the counter, rubbed it with kosher salt and pepper and put it on the gas grill. Because it’s gas, I never have to worry about tending the fire or running out of fuel. I just let it alone for about 3 hours, and it’s done. Or at least the pork was cooked. The sauce took another 5 minutes of prep and 10 minutes of being left alone on the stove. The time consuming part, should you choose to do so, is hand-pulling the pork. Now, you could just slice it (so lame) and you could just chop it (not for me – it’s just not good enough).  That would indeed be very quick.

When I have to do something time consuming and repetitive (notice I didn’t say laborious) I get into the rhythm of it. Music helps. For instance, I put the Shins mix (or the Talking Heads or something Bollywood or Schubert – whatever) on Pandora and get to work. Anything repetitive in the kitchen and I put on some music and focus. Five pounds of meat takes me about about half an hour of pulling.

What they don’t tell you in the cookbooks, is how to pull pork. They just write: pull the pork into shreds. Which tells you nothing. It is easy to pull a chicken breast and there is nothing to avoid – little gristle, no fat. Pork shoulder is completely different. I kind of wonder if they don’t tell you because they don’t want to put people off. The truth is: Pulling pork is not for the squeamish. You should though – pull pork. If you are too squeamish about things you will miss out on some of the best stuff in life – like these pulled pork sandwiches.

There are motherlodes of pork fat running through the shoulder of a pig (a.k.a. Boston butt) and you have to pull around them.  They are slick and gelatinous. I find that a 6″ chef’s knife can scrape away the worst of it. Your knife and your hands will be slick with grease. Definitely wear an apron. If you slice or chop the meat – these gelatinous and unappetizing pieces end up in your sandwich and you don’t get the textural pleasure that is unique to pulled pork. Although I bet that the real grill master is not as fastidious as I am about getting most of the fat out. Actually, it is very satisfying to pull the pork yourself once you get over the “ick factor”. Just crank up the music and go. If you’re going to eat meat – you’re going to have to get used to fat and tendons and other parts of an animal’s body – that’s all there is to it.

We served the pork on toasted Kaiser rolls and I made black bottom cupcakes. The picky kids got hotdogs. Our friends brought the beer and hot chocolate. We warmed the pork in a cast iron skillet on the grill with a big squeeze bottle of sauce on the side.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches with West Carolina Barbecue Sauce – Weber’s Big Book of Grilling 2001

Serves 15

This book was such a surprise to me, recommended by a friend.  Normally I would never try a book by a manufacturer.  I guess I thought it would read like a technician’s manual. Weber’s Big Book of Grilling is a very different thing than the books that come with the KitchenAid mixer or the Cuisinart.  They have nothing to recommend them; they barely scratch the surface of what the machines are capable of, and are never, ever inspiring. This book is different. I bet I have tried and loved more recipes from this book than any other on my shelves.

The Sauce

  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1/4 c minced yellow onion
  • 2 c ketchup
  • 2/3 c packed light brown sugar
  • 1/2 c yellow mustard
  • 1/2 c cider vineger
  • 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tsp Tabasco
  • 5 lb boneless pork shoulder, also known as Boston Butt rolled and tied (your butcher can do this, mine was already tied when I bought it)
  • 1-2 tbsp kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Heat the grill on high heat. Take the pork out of the refrigerator 1/2 an hour before you want to grill. Rub the pork all over with kosher salt and black pepper. Set the grill to indirect medium. On my grill this means you leave the two outer burners on, set to medium and turn off the one in the middle – for indirect heat.  Place the roast fat side up, on the grill. I have a digital thermometer to insert into the meat that beeps when the temperature of the roast gets to 185 F. A five pound roast takes 3 hours more or less. If you have a regular meat thermometer, use that and check every 20 minutes or so after 2 hours.

While the roast is on the grill, make the sauce. In a medium sized saucepan over medium high heat, melt the butter. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, occasionally stirring, until translucent. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

When the pork is done, let it stand at room temperature covered in foil for at least 20 minutes. The outside will be burnished red and crisp and incredibly tasty – salty like a potato chip and crunchy and chewy all at once.  You will need a large bowl for the pork, a bowl or plate for the scraps and a cutting board. The hard part – at least the first time – was the distinction between the meat and the fat. It’s not immediately clear.

Since I have never had the pleasure of eating at a true barbecue joint, I have no idea if what I decided to do was authentic. What I do know is that it was completely delicious. You have to use your fingers and know that your hands will become incredibly greasy. I pulled large pieces of meat off the roast.  They were edged with the slick fat that coated my knife and my fingers. That clear fat I pulled off as best I could. Then I took my knife and scraped off any really fatty looking parts clinging to the meat. What I realized after I’d pulled the pork for awhile is that the reddish crisp outer layer of the roast must also be pulled, the fat clinging to the back must be scraped away. If you throw away the crisp part, you get rid of the most wonderful part of this sandwich. It is just the right kind of chewy, with small succulent pieces of pork clinging to the back. Just pull it apart, scrape off the fat and add it to the bowl.

When you have pulled apart the entire roast, toss the meat with a couple of ladles of the warm sauce, just to moisten. Serve the remaining sauce on the side with toasted Kaiser rolls, spread with butter if you like. I like my sandwich pretty saucy and the recipe allows for that.

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Familiar-Old French Toast

Posted on February 4, 2010 | 2 comments

When I started writing all this food stuff, I never thought that I would write so much about sausages or mac and cheese or, as I will today, french toast for dinner.  My aspirations for dinner are usually somewhat higher. But I have to say, I dial my culinary efforts way back when I am home with my kids alone. We all have a better time. This week’s menu plan has been working so well for us – I think I am going to have to have a Parenting Alone category.

Everyone knows that a kid behaves a lot better if they are well fed than if they’re starving or have been fed a bunch of something nasty. So when Martin is out of town, I work hard to plan fun meals that have very familiar and nourishing components. I suppose a lot of people might resort to prepared foods and take-out. I resist prepared foods of any stripe. I can’t bring myself to be fed by an entity whose main culinary goal revolves around the bottom line. Who knows what they really put in their concoctions to keep the price down? I bet that sounds really paranoid. Also I find those mysterious cans and jars completely unsatisfying. When I’m tired I need something that’s really delicious.

So tonight, the LAST night of single parenting (yay!), we will end with french toast with berry compote and bacon (with tea of course) and then we can all finally go back to eating “normal” food – whatever that is.

Here is the recipe, for what it’s worth. You can make french toast in any old way – some people only use eggs!  I have seen a recipe in Joy that soaks the bread simply in maple syrup – how reductive! – (it sounds weird to me – I must try it some day!) Tonight, I’ll do what my parents did, although I like to use challah or brioche instead of sliced Roman Meal – the floppy, spineless, whole wheat, plastic bag bread of my childhood. For me, that would be taking the familiar too far.

  • Start the bacon in a cold non-stick pan and turn the heat to medium-low.   Unlike cooking other meats, you want to start the bacon in a cold pan to prevent it from curling up.  Cooking it over relatively low heat saves you from a greasy mess all over the stove.  Also, if you are multi-tasking with cooking the french toast, making tea, etc. you’ll increase your chances of having everything come out perfectly instead of smoking and singed. You can flip the bacon as you mix the milk and egg mixture and cook the french toast.

Challah french toast with berry compote – The 1997 Joy of Cooking

  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 tbsp sugar, or maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 6 slices challah
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • maple syrup
  1. Whisk together the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt.  I use a shallow pan, wide enough to soak 2 slices of bread at once – like a gratin dish.
  2. Heat up a non stick griddle or large non-stick frying pan, medium – medium high heat.
  3. Dip the bread slices, one or two at a time into the egg mixture until saturated but not falling apart.
  4. Melt the butter and add as many slices of bread as will fit into the pan. Cook until golden brown on the bottom then flip.  Cook until second side is golden.
  5. If you are doubling the recipe or you want to serve them all at once, keep them warm on a plate in a 200 F oven.
  6. Serve with maple syrup and berry compote.

Berry Compote

Take 1 1/2 cups frozen berries and a squirt of maple syrup, honey, sugar OR agave and put them in a Pyrex or other microwave safe bowl. Heat up in the microwave for 2-3 minutes.



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Macaroni and Cheese

Posted on February 3, 2010 | 4 comments

I was going to make Welsh Rarebit today. This morning, during a remarkably peaceful breakfast with the three monkeys, I decided to hash out the dinner menus with them so they would know what was coming over the next two days until Martin gets back. I got huge push back on the Welsh Rarebit. Since it’s fencing practice tonight, and we’ll get back late, I decided that this “weird” version of toasted cheese (Welsh Rarebit has beer in it – it’s still the most innocuous dish) might push the carefully orchestrated balance of the household into bedlam. So I am scrapping the Welsh Rarebit idea.

Mac and Cheese. Doesn’t everyone already know how to make this?  Or at least where to look if they want to try?  I’m not sure.  So many people rely on the bunny version. The real thing is what we have around here. When I first started cooking for my kids, this was a once a week habit. Now it’s been a long time since Mac and Cheese was my back pocket dish. With Martin out of town though, familiar dishes are another way of keeping the volume down.

I also make Mac and Cheese when my brother and his family come to visit. My feeling is that visiting children who have taken long plane rides need and appreciate familiar foods. So when my brother rolls his eyes and says”  Mac and Cheese?! Isn’t there like a pound of cheese in that and a 1/4 pound of butter?!”  I just shrug and know that he’s happy that his boys are happily scarfing down plates of gooey pasta and will toddle off to bed without much of a peep. Matt, the mac and cheese is my gift to you!

I serve mac and cheese with hot buttered peas. I will not make excuses for all this butter.

Mac and Cheese

20 minutes of efficient work, 30 minutes in the oven

People get all nervous about white sauce, or bechamel. They are afraid it will be pasty and gloppy or that it will scorch badly and that the pan will be impossible to clean. It’s all about regulating the heat. A heavy bottomed pot does make a huge difference. That being said, before I got married, I made this for years in a old Revere-ware pot with a wobbly handle (that I inherited from my great-aunt) with great success. You just have to watch the heat and keep on stirring so it doesn’t scorch on you.

I love to make bechamel actually. The way the sauce goes from soupy-milky  to velvety-spoon coating in a matter of minutes makes me feel like a scientist. If you’ve never made it before, watching the transformation is very satisfying.


  • 4 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp butter, separated
  • 4 tbsp flour
  • 2 1/2 c milk, can even be 1% lowfat
  • 1/4 tsp dry English mustard
  • 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper – gives the dish a just perceptible heat
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • freshly ground pepper
  • 4 ounces grated sharp cheddar – aged no more than 2 years
  • 4 ounces grated Monterey jack
  • 1 end of a loaf of sandwich bread, made into bread crumbs in a clean coffee grinder – or 3/4-1  cup fresh bread crumbs
  • 1/2 lb pasta, elbows are traditional but we like shells, farfalle, and penne
  1. Start a large pot of water to boil.
  2. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
  3. Add salt to the water and cook the pasta according to the time on the box. Drain.
  4. Mix the flour, dry mustard and cayenne in a small bowl.
  5. Over medium heat, melt the 4 tbsp butter in a heavy bottom sauce pan. Don’t brown the butter, just melt it.  When the butter is melted, add the flour, mustard, cayenne mixture and whisk for about a minute. Timing and temperature are key. If the heat is too low or if you don’t cook it long enough, that’s when you get a pasty, institutional tasting sauce. If the heat is too high, the sauce will scorch. If either of those things happen, you’ll wish you’d left dinner to the bunny mac people. The first few times, just pay attention. This really is the easiest thing. On my stove, and all stoves are different, the heat needs to be just slightly warmer than medium.
  6. Add the milk slowly, whisking all the while. I am right handed and I pour the milk with my left hand, while whisking confidently with my right. Initially this was like patting my head and rubbing my stomach – I’ve come a long way since then. Probably you are more coordinated than I am. Anyway, the milk and flour mixture will seize up at first and look uncompromisingly lumpy. Just keep on whisking – confidently. Get all the lumps.  Lumpy white sauce is another thing people fear – with good reason. You follow the directions and you won’t have to worry about lumps.
  7. Once all the milk has been added and all of the lumps whisked away, you might think that the sauce looks unpromisingly thin. You may wish that you had used whole milk or even cream. Fear not. This is the fun part! (I really do not get out enough – oh well)  Turn up the heat to medium high and continue to whisk. When the sauce begins to simmer around the edges, it will magically thicken – not suddenly, just consistently. You will see that the bechamel has the consistency of melted milkshake or very heavy cream. Some might say to whisk for 10 more minutes, but I say that would be overkill for this dish.
  8. Take the pan off the heat and go check your email. This will allow the sauce to cool slightly and then the cheese won’t become grainy. It’s not the end of the world if this happens, it’s just nicer if it doesn’t.
  9. Add the cheese, salt and pepper and whisk. Taste for salt and pepper and add more if necessary.
  10. Mix in the cooked pasta and pour everything into a gratin dish. Mine is ceramic, about 1 1/2″ deep. The dimensions are 7″ x 10″
  11. Melt the last tbsp butter and stir in the fresh bread crumbs. Sprinkle over the top of the mac and cheese.
  12. At this point you could cool it then wrap the whole thing up and put it in the refrigerator until you bake it. Up to 24 hours later.
  13. Or put it in the oven for 30 minutes, until bubbling

The last time I made this I made the mistake of adding some blue cheese, the remnant of a wonderful creamy French one. It was only fun for the grown-ups though and so I will probably never do that again. The look of sheer dismay, betrayal and utter shock on my oldest child’s face cured me of messing with familiar perfection.

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Cake for dinner – High Tea Round 2

Posted on February 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Tonight is the second night of high tea. Or maybe this is just regular old pick-me-up 4:00 tea since it is highly questionable to serve cake as a main course at dinnertime. I will make the kids eat at least 2 little sandwiches first though. I figure when I’m parenting alone, all bets are off. I can do what I want.

Despite having a lot to do and having Martin out of town, I decided to make my own cake. I really like to make cake and unless I make one for dinner I can hardly write about it on a dinner blog. This is a fabulous cake in a sturdy sort of way. Plus, it has blackstrap molasses in it and as everyone knows, molasses is full of iron and iron is good for you.  So in some way that cancels out the 1/2 lb of butter and the cup of brown sugar and the honey, right?  Anyway, here’s the cake – one of my favorites. It’s good for after school or with a cup of tea on a rainy afternoon.  Good for breakfast or, in fact, for dinner.  A blob of lightly sweetened whipped cream is recommended and traditional.

Black Sticky Gingerbread – 10 minutes work, tops.  1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours in the oven

This recipe is from one of my all time favorite books: In The Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley.  This book has never failed me.  The Quince and Dried Cherry Bread Pudding and the Chocolate Mandarin Tart are outstanding. Ms. Daley is a wonderful baker and a very engaging writer.  One caveat:  I had In the Sweet Kitchen for 3 years before I tried any of the recipes because half of the nearly 700 pages are reference materials – all for baking! That kind of threw me off.  One of the great things about this cake is that it is completely unnecessary to haul out the stand mixer.  Even a hand mixer would be overdoing it.  What you want here, is a wooden spoon.

  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 3/4 cup unsulphured blackstrap molasses
  • 3/4 cup flavorful honey
  • 1 cup tightly packed dark brown sugar
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • 3 large eggs at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup 2% milk
  • 1 packed tbsp grated fresh ginger root
  • Lightly sweetened whipped cream to serve
  1. Take the eggs out of the refrigerator and set them in a bowl on the counter (this is so they come to room temperature – I always forget to do this)
  2. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Grease a 9″ square pan and line the bottom with parchment paper with a 2″ overhang on either side. That way you can take the cake out of the pan easily for serving.
  3. In a saucepan, combine the butter, molasses, honey and brown sugar. Place over low heat. Stir until butter is melted (no need to boil or anything)  and transfer to a large mixing bowl to cool down.
  4. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.
  5. When the molasses mixture is barely warm, whisk in the eggs, one at a time. Add the milk and stir. Fold in the dry ingredients in 4 additions – using big long strokes. The batter will be quite lumpy but there should be no white streaks of flour.
  6. Pour the batter into the square pan and bake for 1 1/4- 1 1/2 hours. The top should be springy and a cake tester should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and then, using the parchment, lift the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.

This cake is also wonderful because it keeps! For 4 days well wrapped on the counter and up to a week well-wrapped in the fridge.  Don’t forget the whipped cream.

8:15 pm.  Everyone is asleep in their beds, except me, of course. It’s time for a little confession.  I may have baked that ginger cake for myself – if I am really honest.  It is a wonderful cake.  The kids were good sports about it, but I could tell.  They didn’t like it that much.

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High Tea – the recap

Posted on February 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Inauspiciously – that’s how the day began. I overslept; too much green tea at the Chinese restaurant kept me wired past midnight. Then there was the bed head. So bad there was nothing for it: I had to take a shower. The little guy tried to stick to his guns about the “Future Superhero” t-shirt but it was too splotched with jam and chocolate – I just couldn’t let him wear it again.  He responded with a monumental meltdown and refused to get dressed or be consoled or drink his warm milk. He just shivered and sobbed. Every time I turned around while trying to make breakfast, there was another mess to deal with. The babysitter was 20 minutes late. And Monday is my big volunteer day. I spend the whole day at school and then take everyone to fencing and then home in time to meet the piano teacher. And make dinner.

Just based on the crazy intensity of the day, I had very low expectations for an evening at home alone with three kids and the puppy. My sales and marketing campaign for the high tea idea had fallen off in the morning during the hubbub. We got home from fencing late. While the piano lesson progressed in the living room, there was a lot of squabbling in the kitchen. Of course there was homework nagging too. The menu was very simple though. I certainly didn’t lose my mind getting it on the table.

Maybe it was the tea. Or that chewy golden oat bread, dripping with hot butter and honey. It had these deeply brown-edged holes and a creamy, salty-sweet interior. There is nothing like hot buttered toast and tea – with milk. (for me, it’s better than a hot bath or a good book and a blanket in front of the fire)  The sausages, as always, were crisp and nicely caramelized but after all, they were just sausages. (I swear I’m not going to eat another one for a month!) The cucumbers, carrots and peppers were just plain-old (but sweet and fresh) with the Greek yogurt and garlic. We ate a lot though. A lot of everything.

So was it really just the tea?! Afterwards, the kids and the puppy all did exactly what I wanted them to do. Pajamas, stories, teeth, a little more homework, but upstairs this time and docilely at their desks. And then bed. Quietly. I’m definitely going to do this again tomorrow.  High tea was a very good idea.

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Martin in Dublin – ugh

Posted on January 31, 2010 | 1 comment

Martin is in Dublin for work. I am here in Seattle, as always.  On my own with 3 kids, a puppy, a cat, those volunteer commitments, carpools, lunchboxes to pack, laundry and yes, dinner. Even though I love to cook dinner, I think it’s dinner – during a week when I’m on my own – that puts me over the edge.

I hate the way it goes:  home from school, snack, homework, breaking up squabbles, nagging about homework, prepping for dinner, breaking up squabbles, cooking dinner, nagging about homework, serving dinner, sending them up to put their pajamas on, cleaning up dinner, brushing teeth, reading stories, snuggling, bed. And that was skipping a bunch of nagging and breaking up more squabbles. One night at that intensity and I am wiped out.  A week of it and it takes a month to recover. The cleaning up after dinner on top of everything else seems like an insult and I just want to cry or go to the movies (by myself of course) and (of course) I can’t.  So I have to make a plan.

This week I am taking a page out of my friend Sarah’s book and I am going to feed my kids dinner right after school. I am going to call it tea, in the English sense, not just tea and cookies but tea and some real food.  Here are my requirements of this week’s menus:

  1. I don’t want to have to clean up much – just rinse the plates and put them in the dishwasher.  No pots.  No caramelized gunge on a roasting pan.
  2. I want it to feel fun – not the everyday, run-of-the-mill dinner.
  3. The food should not be challenging
  4. I want everyone to go to bed feeling nourished and loved and calm
  5. I only want to eat take-out pizza once, and since I did that last night (on the first night he was gone)- it’s no longer an option

Really I want this every night – who wouldn’t?  Sanity with kids is a lot easier to achieve when there is another person around. This week we will have easy food, calming food, some might call it nursery food.  We will have things like Welsh rarebit one night, small tea sandwiches (which I can make early in the day) with some kind of sturdy apple or carrot cake (I might actually buy this at a bakery – even though I LOVE to bake a sturdy cake with dried apples or dates or something), maybe cauliflower cheese. We will have a snack at bedtime, (wouldn’t it be terrible to have someone crying about being hungry at bedtime this week? ) so maybe a small bagel and cream cheese or some yogurt. I think this is what children in British novels in the 1920’s and 30’s would have after school. Tea meant dinner.  And really, for kids under the age of 10, maybe this is the way to go.  Life for children is challenging. We expect them to do all this homework and swim and be little gymnasts, and paint and socialize nicely. Maybe dinner shouldn’t challenge them again at the end of the day. Maybe I’m onto to something here, or at least my friend Sarah is. She seems to know everything.

So, after looking at the schedule – really only Tuesday is going to work exactly the way I want it to.  That’s the day we’re all home by 4:30.  But that’s ok.  What we’ll have is a proper high tea. People in the states often confuse this with something really fancy, which it is not.  High tea is a working man’s dinner, with tea.  Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

High Tea (also known as meat tea) is an early evening meal, typically eaten between 5pm and 6pm. It would substitute for both afternoon tea and the evening meal.

High Tea would usually consist of cold meats, eggs or fish, cakes and sandwiches. In a family, it tends to be less formal and is an informal snack (featuring sandwiches, biscuits, pastry, fruit and the like) or else it is the main evening meal.

Here are some of this things I am thinking about for the week. We all like tea so there will be rooibos with everything, not real black tea.  The last thing I need is three kids amped up on caffeine. Also, I am going to start the sales and marketing tonight. I have to get the kids invested and excited about “all tea – every night ” this week. I’m hoping they will be kind of intrigued because we don’t ever have high tea for dinner. Also I get to skip tonight, Sunday, because we are going out for Chinese with my dad. Thank goodness for Chinese food and also that my kids like it.

Monday Menu

(Ok.  So this isn’t that different from any other dinner but we were supposed to eat these sausages tonight)

  • Oven Grilled Sausages (roasting pan lined with foil to minimize caramelized gunge)
  • Hot Buttered Toast
  • Crudité and Yogurt Dip
  • Fresh Pineapple – my dad brought me one, randomly

Tuesday Menu

  • Chicken, white cheddar and chutney sandwiches on whole grain bread
  • Cucumber and creamy garlic goat cheese sandwiches also on whole grain
  • Pear walnut cake – from the bakery on 15th and Republican
  • Apples and celery with peanut butter

Wednesday Menu

  • Welsh Rarebit with Toast Fingers
  • Cucumber, edamame, celery salad

Thursday Menu

  • French Toast with Berry Compote
  • Bacon

Grocery List

I am planning to do all the shopping on Tuesday.  I have everything I need for Monday already.

  • Excellent Sharp cheddar for rarebit
  • Cucumber
  • Apples
  • Celery
  • Edamame
  • Cake
  • Colombia Bread
  • Challah or Brioche Loaf
  • Bacon

Looking it all over – these menus look eminently doable.  The most complicated night is Tuesday, with all those little sandwiches. The little guy goes to preschool that day so I can prep the garlic goat cheese in about 5 minutes, after I drop him off in the morning.  The sandwiches are made easily in the afternoon just before we eat – I will make 3 of each kind to share.  I’m going to cut them into small triangles – just like at a real tea. Maybe I’ll even serve them on that 3 tier caddy that’s collecting dust in the cupboard. I have never made Welsh rarebit before but it looks very approachable. It is an English person’s fast weeknight meal – it’s hardly going to be complicated. Just a slow melting of the cheese so it doesn’t seize up. I can do that. French toast: I can make it in my sleep!  Right now french toast sounds a little too sweet so maybe I’ll have to adjust the menu later in the week. Not to worry. I can forget about dinner for now. It’s all planned out.


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Curried Cubanos with mojo, baby

Posted on January 29, 2010 | 1 comment

What should be done with leftover curried roast chicken?  I’m still not sure why the answer turned out to be Curried Cubanos. I know, it should have been velvet butter chicken, but we have had a glut of curried chicken in the past few weeks. I was sick of chicken leftovers in quesadillas and chicken salad and even though I love chicken enchiladas, there is way too much prep to build them on a Tuesday night. Considering that the chicken was, in fact, curried, almost anything not Indian would be weird.  I was in the mood for a Cubano with Mojo* anyway. Even one with an incongruous Indian accent.

Cubanos with Mojo? (I have to say that looks really funny to me. I can’t write about mojo and not think of Austin Powers – even if they aren’t actually pronounced the same way) Anyway, this recipe for pork Cubano sandwiches from Fine Cooking uses a mojo to perk up the flavor. Although I have to say, that the curry from the leftover roast chicken probably contributed more mojo than the actual mojo did.  Which is not to say that the curry worked brilliantly – I kept thinking: Curried Cubanos…really?! I don’t know…as I was eating them, not ever being entirely convinced. Still, the kids liked them; we liked them. In terms of whether or not I might make them again, and for whom, well, I might serve them to my sister but never to her husband. I just don’t think he would approve.

With the Cubanos we had Black Bean Soup.   It has been at least a year since the last time I made Black Bean Soup. I had been following the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated’s The New Best Recipe.  I often turn to this book, especially for basic renditions of ethnic foods. They do a pretty good job of transforming supermarket fundamentals into things like pho and pappa al pomodoro which are a lot more fun than macaroni and cheese or broiled chicken breasts as midweek fare.

That being said, their black bean soup recipe stinks. Really. Their recipe stopped me from making Black Bean Soup at all. For a while, I couldn’t figure out why it was so terrible. They start with all the right ingredients. First, they cook the beans with a ham hock. Then, adding soffrito with red pepper, garlic and herbs. The weird part is that they finish the soup with this cornstarch slurry, promising to keep the soup nice and black and thickening without pureeing too many of the beans. It doesn’t work at all and there were a lot of extra steps.

What I realized when I went back to look at the recipe though, is that they expect the soup to be done in just 2 1/2 hours!  And that’s without soaking the beans.  No way is that going to work. What I have come to realize is you just can’t rush beans. Not black beans anyway. Thickening the soup with cornstarch is a cheater’s method. Black bean soup should be basic and easy going. It requires nothing more than a little planning.  10-15 minutes worth of work will give you back three days of deliciousness.  You don’t want to go messing around with a 3 part recipe to get an inferior soup with a lot of extra work. No. Soak your beans ahead of time and this soup materializes practically out of thin air! I read a bunch of recipes and cobbled this recipe together. This black bean soup is the color of the deepest chocolate. It has a velvety consistency and a gentle, easy, burn. You won’t break a sweat pulling it together.  Count on at least 3 hours of simmering though and on soaking the beans.

Black Bean Soup

  • 1 lb black beans, picked over and soaked overnight in a large bowl. The water should cover the beans by at least 2 inches
  • 1/4 c. olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped fine
  • A 2 inch chunk of salt pork
  • 1 quart chicken broth, boxed is fine – I like Pacific brand
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, drained of their juice and cut up.  (I like to do this right in the can with my kitchen scissors as I learned from Laurie Colwin in her book Home Cooking, which I love)
  • 1 heaping tsp ground cumin
  • 2 or more minced cloves garlic
  • 1/8-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 tsp of salt, more to taste

Grated cheese, chopped green or red onion, sour cream or greek yogurt for garnish

  1. 3 hours before dinner Put the chopped onion, the olive oil and the piece of salt pork in a large enameled cast iron pot or a heavy bottomed soup pot and turn on the heat to low.  Put the lid on the pot and cook 12-15 minutes, stirring 2 or 3 times.  You don’t want the mixture to get crisp or brown, just to gently soften.
  2. Add the beans, the stock and the water and simmer for an hour or so until the beans are soft.
  3. 2 hours before dinner Add the tomatoes, cumin, garlic,chili flakes and salt.
  4. Leave to very gently simmer for a long long time – about 2 hours.  If you put it on a flame tamer and you are feeling brave you can run an errand or pick up the kids from school.  This makes me a little nervous but I still do it.  I would use a flame tamer though.  It would be very sad to scorch this wonderful soup.

Curried Cubanos

If you have leftover roast pork in the fridge, use that and you won’t have to make excuses about the curry.

Mojo

  • 1 medium clove of garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 tbsp fresh cilantro
  1. Mash salt into the garlic with the back of your chef’s knife or a mortar and pestle.
  2. Transfer to a small bowl and add the rest of the ingredients.  Let sit for at least 5 minutes

The sandwiches

  • 4 oval shaped subs or bulky rolls, split, not too crusty
  • 3 tbsp grainy mustard
  • 6 oz leftover curried chicken
  • 1/4 lb thinly sliced ham
  • 4 slices swiss cheese
  • 2 dill pickles, thinly sliced
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
  1. Heat a sandwich press or use a grill pan heated over medium heat.
  2. Brush the inside of the rolls with the mojo and mustard.
  3. Stack the bottom part with equal amounts of pork, ham cheese and pickles.
  4. Top each sandwich with upper half and brush top with the butter
  5. Place in press or on grill pan.  If using grill pan, weight sandwiches with a plate with cans set on top.  Flip sandwich when bottom side is browned. Brown each side and let the cheese melt.

Since I had leftover chicken anyway, this menu was a breeze.  I soaked the beans after dinner the night before and started the soup at about 1:30 pm the following day, when the little guy started his nap.  I spent about 15 minutes on it, about 5 of those minutes at 1:30 and 10 at 2:30.  I didn’t do anything else with dinner until 5:15.  We were eating by 5:45, and that included heating up the panini press.

*Mojo: In Cuban cooking mojo applies to any sauce that is made with garlic, olive oil and a citrus juice, traditionally sour orange juice. It is used to marinate roast pork or plantains.

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Serendipity: Potatoes with Many Seeds

Posted on January 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

On Sunday I was going to try this Roast Boneless Pork Loin recipe from Fine Cooking that has you roast pork for Sunday. Then, you eat Chinese Pork and Mushroom Wraps on Monday and New Mexican Pork and Green Chile Stew on Tuesday. On Wednesday, if there was any left, I could make Cubanos – a sandwich with sliced roast pork, ham, swiss, pickles and mustard.  I put mine in the sandwich press.  All of those porky things sound very good on their own but then I thought about eating pork for 4 nights straight and all of a sudden it didn’t sound so good anymore. So I kept flipping through Fine Cooking and there in the “Dinner with Friends” section I found an Indian Spiced Chicken recipe with cilantro and limes.  The menu was designed with Friday night in mind, an afterwork affair – very straightforward and easy. I thought if I made enough chicken, I could slice the leftovers and use them in an ersatz kind of Cubano – with chicken replacing the ham. In the menu in Fine Cooking, they served the chicken with basmati rice pilaf and a spinach and yogurt saag. I had a bag of fingerlings though, that had been meant to go with the pork and another of haricot vert. The haricot vert could become Gujerati Style Green Beans from Madhur Jaffrey and the potatoes, well, I thought those might get roasted with the chicken with a bunch of Indian spices and garlic. I figured I would be able to wing it but I steamed the potatoes, just in case, so they would be ready for anything.

Menu

  • Indian Spiced Chicken with Lime and Cilantro, Fine Cooking
  • Gujerati-Style Green Beans, see Capitol Hill Indian Food post for recipe
  • Potatoes with Many Seeds – Madhur Jaffrey

Game Plan

  • 45 minutes before you want to eat: Assemble all spices.  Measure out the spices and seeds separately that you will need for the chicken, beans and potatoes.
  • Make chicken marinade.
  • 35 minutes before you want to eat: Steam potatoes and green beans.  If your pot is big enough, you might be able to fit both into one pot, separated on either side of the steamer basket, bearing in mind that the beans will come out after 5-7 minutes and the potatoes after 15-20, depending on how big they are.
  • 30 minutes before you want to eat: Start broiler
  • 25 minutes before you want to eat: Put the chicken in the oven
  • 15 minutes before you want to eat: Start potato recipe and bean recipe. Slice potatoes lengthwise. Ideally you will have 2 large non-stick skillets to cook the beans and potatoes in simultaneously.  It’s a little bit of a duelling skillets moment.  Read the recipes over carefully though; it’s very easy to do them at the same time if you are aware in advance of what you need to accomplish.

Indian spiced chicken with lime and cilantro

for 4 (with leftovers for the next days Cubanos)

Marinade:

  • 1 tbsp curry powder
  • 1 tbsp ground cumin seed
  • 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems
  • the juice from a medium lime
  • 2 medium garlic cloves
  • 2 scallions
  • 1 1/2 tbsp canola oil
  • 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt – plus more to taste
  • 6 small chicken breast, skin-on, bone-in, trimmed of excess fat and skin.
  • lime wedges
  1. Preheat broiler.
  2. Combine first 10 ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Puree until smooth.
  3. Put the puree and the chicken into a large bowl and toss to coat all sides.  Set aside while broiler is heating or refrigerate for up to 24 hours.
  4. Position oven rack 8 inches from broiler and heat broiler on high. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil. Arrange chicken, skin side up on top. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt.
  5. Broil until chicken is brown with singed bits at the edges, about 20 minutes. If the chicken seems to be getting too dark, turn off the broiler and set the oven to 450F. Test with instant read thermometer or by cutting into chicken after 20 minutes. The chicken should be 165F when it is done; the juices clear. You may need 5-15 minutes more, depending on the size of the breasts. If it is done before or after the potatoes or the beans, no harm done. Any of these recipes could be served less than piping hot.
  6. Arrange chicken on plates or platter, garnish with cilantro. Serve with a squirt of lime juice.

Potatoes with Many Seeds

If you like making Indian food, it will be worth your while to keep black mustard seeds and cumin seeds in the house. There will be endless uses for them. I came to this recipe at the last minute last night, because I realized I wouldn’t be able to do both the potatoes and the chicken at the same time. I know it’s weird, but I was glad my oven was small and that I only have one. (I dream of having double wall ovens) But if I’d had two ovens, I would never have discovered this amazing recipe! There I was, about to toss the potatoes in the oven and I thought about it; it would never do. The rimmed sheet pan with the chicken was too large. The potatoes wouldn’t brown properly. The timing on the chicken could be compromised! Quickly I flipped through Madhur Jaffrey and came upon a recipe she calls Potatoes with Sesame Seeds. If I hadn’t been desperate – I never would have looked twice at that recipe. It sounds too boring. But I had steamed potatoes already and I knew I had sesame seeds. Again, lucky me. I also had the cumin and black mustard seeds. I am so happy I tried this recipe! These potatoes are encrusted with crunchy, salty, seeds, their warm, toasted scent permeating the whole house.  They’re beautiful, very more-ish and so unusual.  The sesame seeds are the least of their charms. We couldn’t stop eating them.  In fact, I was just now eating them cold, straight from the fridge – and I am a person who almost never eats leftovers (I know that’s weird for a cook). I highly recommend eating them this way. They were almost as satisfying right out of the refrigerator as they were hot.  I had to change the name. Potatoes with Many Seeds – not very inspired perhaps, but hopefully somewhat intriguing.

  • 2 lbs fingerling potatoes, steamed and sliced lengthwise
  • 4 tbsp canola oil
  • 2 tsp whole cumin seeds
  • 2 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 2 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/8-1/2 tsp chile flakes
  • 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
  1. Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat.
  2. Put the potatoes and the seeds right next to the pan, ready to go.
  3. Add the oil and when it is very hot, add the seeds. They will pop almost immediately and start to jump right out of the pan like crazy. Rather messy but so worth it.
  4. Quickly add the potatoes and fry for 5 minutes – they will start to become golden and crisp.
  5. Add the red pepper flakes and salt and fry for another 5 minutes until browned on the outside.
  6. Sprinkle with lemon or lime juice and serve.

We liked this menu so much. The chicken was crisp, the spices warmly fragrant and the final squirt of lime juice, piquant. Then the potatoes…the potatoes…the potatoes. Delicious.  I would serve them on a platter as an hors d’oeuvre with a champagne cocktail; although that might be kind of odd – it would certainly be satisfying.  I got the same desire for them as I get for potato chips or caramelized onions. The saltiness, the nuttiness of the seeds, the crisp crunchiness.  The green beans as always, were a hit. This menu might be a little salty if you are a person who is sensitive to salt.  But we loved it.  This one is a winner at my house.

Stay tuned for tomorrow when the leftover chicken will reappear in Cubanos with mojo…you may want to soak a pound of dried black beans in preparation.

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Bangers and mash

Posted on January 21, 2010 | 2 comments

I actually wasn’t even going to write about what we are having for dinner today because it’s so run-of-the-mill. I hardly think anyone will care to read about it. After running over the menu this morning though, I changed my mind. I’m not a trained chef, I’m not a restaurateur, I’m not a socialite with a cook. I’m a mom with 3 kids and a dog and a cat, a whole lot of carpools and a not entirely adequate kitchen. Sometimes we eat boring food here, and if I pretend I never do that, what kind of a blog is this? A guilt inducing Martha Stewart blog? I hope not. I ‘m just trying to keep it real.

Unless you’re a Brit, or a descendant of a Brit or an Anglophile, you might not know what bangers and mash means. It’s British for sausages and mashed potatoes. Bangers aren’t just any old sausage though. They’re pork with bread crumbs and very mild spices – if they are spiced at all. I am sure you must be thinking: why would anyone want to eat those, they sound so bland and stodgy?! I tell you, if you haven’t been served bangers and mash by your Norwegian-British grandmother (who did a very nice job with it) it might be hard to understand why this is just right on certain evenings. Bangers should be mild and moist, almost creamy, on the inside, in a crisp and caramelized casing.  The mash should be rich and not too wet or soft, with a melted puddle of butter on top. A little salt and a gentle burn of pepper.  With bangers and mash, there is very little planning or shopping or even cooking involved. Kids and grown-ups will like this – unless they’re just being difficult. Sausages and mash go well with beer or a glass of young red wine. I like mine with a strong and slightly sweet mustard that comes from Sweden (which sounds so impressively cultural until I add that we actually buy it at IKEA – I told you this would be run-of-the-mill)

One little problem: bangers are hard to get. The Whole Foods near my house sells, very occasionally, something they like to call bangers. Ha! Sometimes I buy them but they are not bangers.  Sometimes they’re quite spicy which is to say they have a whisper of red chile in them. Even the merest breath of heat strikes the wrong note in a banger. Whole Foods* didn’t even have mild Italian pork sausages today – so tonight we are having – sigh – not bangers, but lamb and feta sausages. With mash. And steamed broccoli. (My granny would have served cauliflower cheese and steamed carrots and peas, but it’s crazy Thursday and I say to hell with it)

Menu: So…I guess what we are having is sausages and mashed potatoes and broccoli. There’s no dressing that up.

The game plan and the recipes are the same because there are no recipes here. Isn’t that kind of a relief? You buy the number of sausages to match the number of people you are serving, the same for the russet potatoes, and a large bunch of broccoli to steam.

The butcher would tell you to cook the sausages on medium heat on the stove in a skillet. I say that is just one more thing to pay attention to. Here’s what I would do:

  • Preheat the oven to 400F – 2 hours before you want to eat.
  • Scrub the potatoes and pierce them in several places with a fork. Brush or spray with olive oil if you like to eat the skins. Set the potatoes right on the oven rack.
  • 40 minutes before you want to eat, put a splash of vegetable oil in a roasting pan and add the sausages. Pop them in the oven next to the potatoes.
  • Rinse and trim the broccoli and put it in a steamer with water in it, on the stove.
  • No less than an hour and a half after you put them in the oven, remove the potatoes. Split them open and carefully (so as not to burn your fingers) scrape the flesh into a bowl. In the microwave heat up milk and butter until the butter is mostly melted – I would say 1/2-3/4 cup milk to 4 large russets and 3-4 walnut sized pieces of butter – but I like my mashed potatoes richly mashed.  Mash them up with a potato masher.  If you like to eat the skins now that they are nicely crisp, sprinkle them with sea salt and eat them up.
  • 10 minutes before you want to eat, start the heat under the broccoli.  Check on it after 7 minutes.  Personally, I would serve the broccoli with mayonnaise to which I have added lemon juice and one small grated clove of garlic, but I come from a mayonnaise eating family.

To make this menu even more ridiculously easy, just serve baked potatoes and steamed peas.  Of course you didn’t hear that from me.  Which is not to say I would never make that – of course I would.   I just wouldn’t write about it!

*Just a word about sausages and Whole Foods:  This may not be true at all Whole Foods in all cities, but here in Seattle they make organic house made sausages. I have to say that they are the worst  house made sausages I have ever had: bangers, Italian, chicken, Thai – you name it – all bad. They are unsubtly spiced; they are too dry; they are too weird. If you can go anywhere else to buy a house made sausage, I would, even if it is just to try their product and see what it is like. I like A&J Meats on Queen Anne. Sadly the Metropolitan Market up there is over-priced and understocked, so I rarely do all my shopping on the top of Queen Anne.  Next time I am at A&J though, I am going to beg them to make a batch of real English style bangers and to please call me when they are done. I would gladly drive all the way across town for some decent bangers – even if it does mess up the whole idea of an easy dinner on a busy day.

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