Frozen Broth: A Sad Tale

I had a leftover free-range chicken carcass that was begging to be made into broth.

I lovingly covered it with purified water and simmered for two hours in my Dutch oven.

I carefully strained the golden liquid into quart sized jars and placed them in the freezer for future use.

I stupidly didn't leave enough space in the jar for the liquid to expand, so the jars broke in the freezer.

I sadly threw the jars and their contents into the trash.

If only I'd left enough room, I'd have a great supply of chicken broth on hand! It's always nice to have it in stock (no pun intended) for making soups, risottos, stuffing, and all manner of other dishes, but store bought broth or stock can be expensive, laden with salt, and made from who-knows-what chicken parts from who-knows-what kind of chickens.  Homemade is almost always best.

Moral of the story?  Don't be like me; leave room in the jars, or better yet, don't use glass jars.  What I normally do (but was too lazy to do) is freeze the broth or stock in muffin tins and throw the rounds in a bag in the freezer, as discussed in this post.  I highly recommend that method, since sometimes you don't need more than a little bit for a recipe.

The end!

All 'Choked Up

I have previously declared my great love for artichokes.  What I didn't mention is my other great love, browned butter.  This super-easy approach to making artichokes awesome involves both; it starts with a gentle braise in lemon juice (or white wine) and water (or broth) and finishes with a serving of browned butter and mashed garlic right in the cavity of the artichokes themselves.

Ok, so here's how you do it.  I make one artichoke at a time, since I'm single, but since most people don't just cook for one, I've written this out for four artichokes, but the photos are reflective of the sole artichoke I cook for myself (cue "All by Myself" and the Bridget Jones's Diary opening credits).

Ingredients:
4 artichokes
1 lemon or 1/2 c white wine
4 cloves of garlic
1-2 cups water (use filtered, if you can) or broth
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 stick unsalted butter
Fine grain sea salt, to taste

Supplies:
Good kitchen knife and cutting board
Dutch oven or a pot with a lid
Citrus reamer

Click through for directions.

Arroz con Pollo

The "No Box/No Restaurant" Challenge is still in effect.  Except I'm sucking at it.  It's harder than I thought.  Especially since, when I threw my back out, my mom brought me a box of Cheez-Its to cheer me up.

Blessed woman.

I am proud to say that I haven't yet eaten those Cheez-Its as a meal, though.

While trying to not eat out unless necessary for social/business purposes, I've been taking advantage of the stockpile of leftovers in my freezer.  Among them was a portion of  Arroz con Pollo leftover from a dinner party.  I was delighted to find I had enough for two meals, and since I live alone, I don't have to share.

Living alone is flipping AWESOME!

Until you find yourself congratulating yourself for a meal well cooked.  Out loud.  To yourself.  As in, "Awesome job, Shan!"  But I digress.

Arroz con Pollo is, simply, chicken and rice.  Most Hispanic cultures have a version of this.  I make a Puerto Rican version that is really delightful.  I actually learned how to make this in the first place, not from my island-born Grandmama, but from an episode of "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" a handful of years back.  This is a fantastic one-pot meal that feeds a large crowd and freezes beautifully.

See the recipe after the jump...

Four-Part Harmony Brownies

This ain't yo momma's brownie



The four secret ingredients in these brownies will make you want to sing! 



I wanted to bring my choir an easy-to-make treat for a long day of rehearsing, so brownies seemed like a good idea.  I'll admit it - I was planning to use a mix - but I looked at the ingredients on the box when I was at the store, and just couldn't bring myself to buy it.  I quickly found a basic recipe online (on my phone, in the middle of Target, thanks to the wonders of technology and all that), purchased the ingredients I didn't have on hand already, and scurried home to make a delicious pan of brownies from scratch.

But since I'm...well, how I am...I had to modify the recipe to suit my whims and preferences. 



My version yields a velvety, dense chocolate brownie that is crunchy on the outside and full of rich, gooey goodness on the inside.  These brownies have an exotic flavor, thanks to the addition of muscovado sugar, cinnamon, coconut oil, and fleur de sel; however, I wouldn't call them "salted cinnamon coconut brown sugar brownies" because the flavors are subtle, playing a supporting role to the chocolate and making a basic, classic dessert just a little more sophisticated.

I'd use an obvious choir metaphor about all the parts blending perfectly in tune, but why embarrass myself?

Read more after the jump...

Lord of the Beans: One Soup to Rule Them All

I once read a parody of Tolkien's "The Two Towers," which that gave the name Minas Troney to one of the towers (get it?).  The book was the most worthless bundle of paper and ink I ever wasted money on, and I'm confident I never finished reading it and threw it away, but every time I eat or make minestrone soup, I think of it.

Read more after the jump...

Roasted Poblano Salsa

I had some poblano peppers (courtesy of my CSA box) that weren't long for this world, and a bunch of cilantro that needed purpose, so I had to come up with something that used them both.

A sassy salsa seemed to fit the bill.  This recipe is really easy.  Serve it with chips, or mix into some rice with shredded chicken/beef/pork, whole beans, and monterey jack cheese. You can also mix this salsa into cream cheese for a really hearty dip.




Extreme closeup!

 

B-L-Tarian

I decided to go without eating meat for a week or so, to force me to eat more vegetables and cleanse my system a little bit.  It's going well, except that I keep eating bacon.  So I guess I'm not totally successful in my temporary vegetarianism.  Unless we can all just agree to call bacon a vegetable.  In fact, let's just do that.

The reason I keep eating bacon is BLTs.  Tomato season is drawing to a close (*sniff*), so I'm trying to make every last one in my CSA box special by crowning them with bacon and lettuce and enrobing them in crispy, golden bread.  But these BLTs are special.  They include the usual suspects, but with a special component - a cream cheese spread that will knock your socks off.  And the option of a scrambled egg.

Also, I fry the bread in the bacon grease.  Don't judge me till you try it.



BLT on a Barbra Streisandwich plate.  Not kosher.



What's in My Freezer - Part 2

As promised (to the two or three people besides my mom who read my blog), here is the rest of the list of things that I keep in my freezer.  My previous post on this subject encompassed items that I make in my kitchen and store in the freezer for when I need them.  This post focuses on often-used things I purchase and keep on hand for the practical purpose of convenience.

So here goes.

What's in my Freezer - Part 1

I recently took inventory of my freezer and realized that I keep a lot of standard ingredients on hand in a frozen state.  I make and freeze most of these items in either ice cube trays or muffin tins and transfer to a plastic bag or other container for easy access.  It might make me out to look like a frozen food hoarder, but I thought I'd share this list, in case it inspires you.



I might be a food hoarder.



Plum Tarte Tatin

I'm wild about tartes tatin.  A tarte tatin (tart ta-TAN, except you don't pronounce the "n") is a French upside-down fruit tart in which the fruit is baked in caramel with crust on top, and then flipped over so the crust is on the bottom and the fruit is on top.

A brief history of tartes tatin can be found here.  (As a side note, I want to be a culinary historian when I grow up.  How cool would that be...for me?)



Traditionally, a tarte tatin is made with apples, but there are skads of recipes on the internet using other fruit. I had a a bunch of plums from the CSA and a sheet of puff pastry to use - and a few hours to kill - so I decided to tackle plum version.  I'd already ventured into tarte territory a few weeks prior with a wonderful savory tomato version, so I was ready.



The result was delightful, and a wonderful balance of tart (not tarte) and sweet.  I brought to work so I wouldn't eat the entire pan on my own.  My coworkers kept going back to the pan to sneak tiny pieces throughout the workday. 

(As another side note, I don't care for pie, and this is basically pie, but I love it.  Maybe because it's puff pastry instead of pie crust.  Except that I love pie crust.  But not pie.)

Click through to read on for the recipe.

Pollo en Fricase

One of my favorite places to visit is the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, which I've written about before (many times).  I'm not ashamed to say that one of the reasons I love to vacation there is the food.  My beautiful grandmother is from San Juan, and I was no stranger to Puerto Rican cooking, but it wasn't until I visited the island and ate traditional dishes with the smell of the ocean in my nose and the sound of the Coqui frog in my ears that I really experienced Puerto Rican cuisine.

On one trip, my good friend Cindilah and I were ravenous after a morning spent wandering around Old San Juan, and found ourselves in a little cafe near or on the Plaza de Colon (I think it was there, anyway, because no matter where we went, we somehow always ended up in that Plaza).  We took a chance on the day's special, pollo en fricase.  It was a thick and hearty stew with a rich, flavorful base, chicken, potatoes, and spices - perfect for two hungry sight-seers.  We spent the lunch in relative silence, punctuated with a lot of "OH MY GAW!" and "mmmmm..."  That was a good day.

Out of nowhere, I had a hankering for the stew the other day.  One can make and eat stew in summer, right?  I searched for a recipe online, found I had all of the ingredients on hand, and decided to go for it.  I adjusted the recipe based on what I had, what I prefer, and how my grandmother taught me to cook Puerto Rican food. 

Shannie Git Your Goat

Goat came in the CSA package last month. GOAT. I mean, I knew it was coming, but I'd hoped it wouldn't. In vain.

For a month, it sat in my freezer untouched. I toyed with the options. There were two - cook and eat the goat or not eat it and let the misery and mystery of the unknown meat continue until I descend into madness.

I chose the former.

Today was the day.

I gathered from my fridge what I thought were complimentary ingredients, formulated a plan, and drove to my mom and stepdad's house. If I was going to try goat, so were they.

I had four small racks of goat (frenched - so fancyyyy) I had to deal with. I decided to braise them. In a pan, I browned the meat on all sides in olive oil, removed the meat, and poured in about a cup and a half of Douro vinha grande (some Portuguese red wine I picked up somewhere) while scraping up the bits of meat stuck to the pan. I added a cup and a half of water, a palmful of smoked paprika, a handful of chopped red onion, and the meat, and covered. After simmering for about 20 minutes, I removed the meat, added 1 tbsp tomato paste and a little more paprika and reduced down into a rich sauce, and coated the meat in it.

I served the racks over browned cabbage and kalamata olives. It looked pretty enough. But how would it taste?

I watched the faces of my family as they took their first bites. And then their second bites. I waited for protests that the ribs tasted of tin cans and bad attitude, but the eating continued without incident, so I tried it. (close eyes, deep breath)

It was good. No, for real.

The goat meat was not gamy at all, as I thought it would be (unlike the goat yogurt I ate once - that's a story for another time, my friends). It tasted like beef that had been hiking in the mountains. Aside from the toughness of the meat (due in no small part to my overcooking it), it was flavorful and rich and meaty and hearty and delicious.

Hmmfph. Who knew?

However, we probably won't tell Grandmama what we fed her. It's just better that way.

Unholy Grounds

I have a confession to make (which I've made previously, actually). I have been drinking instant coffee every day for a year and a half. It's a nasty habit that I've rationalized and justified to myself over and over:

"It can't be that full of chemicals."

"But I have to get to work! I can't brew good coffee for myself every single morning!"

"Well, it's better than the garbage they make at work."

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, if I was going to eliminate toxins from my diet as much as possible, I had to tackle my cup of coffee too (once I finished drinking the instant coffee I had purchased in Puerto Rico - it would be crazy to throw that out!).  Apparently, coffee is one of the crops most heavily sprayed with pesticides.

So I needed an alternative that would allow me to quickly make good coffee in the office kitchen. Luckily, I found a very small french press for less than $10 at TJ Maxx, perfect for brewing one cup of coffee a day. I ground up some coffee beans I had in the freezer at home, brought them to the office, and brewed myself a very formidible cuppa joe. But with a little of my organic/non-homogenized half and half and raw sugar, it went from formidible to SLAMMIN'.

The problem is, my crappy grinder at home works for obliterating the beans, but doesn't do very well to make the larger, uniform grind that's needed for a successful press-pot brew. I ran over to Peet's on my lunch today and discovered, to my utter delight, that they carry an organic coffee, which they obligingly ground for my use in the little french press that is my new best friend.

I can't wait to try it!

UPDATE: Success! The organic coffee from Peet's, plus a little organic cream and raw sugar, is transcendent. It's strong and smooth and ... well, coffee-ish. The way it should be!

Eggs-actly

I have been using my little black pot at work every day to reheat my leftovers, with great success (but not without some idiotic commentary and some envious looks). This morning, I decided it was time to cook here for real.

I wanted scrambled eggs for breakfast. I usually make them at home really quickly, throw them in a container, and eat them when I get to work. This usually results in watery, rubbery eggs.

But not today, oh no, nor ever again!

I brought two eggs* in a container, broke them when I got to work and mixed them with a glug of the half and half** I keep in the fridge for my coffee. I melted a little butter in the pot, added the egg mixture, and voila! Fluffy, hot, gorgeous, creamy scrambled eggs in less than five minutes.

The secret to fluffy eggs, by the way, is not stirring them constantly. Let them cook for a bit until the bottom layer has set, then fold sections of them over - but it's critical to this approach that you do so over low-ish/medium-ish heat so they don't brown. Repeat until cooked through. Trust me - it works like a charm.

*Organic brown cage-free eggs from Costco (two dozen for less than $6 - majorly good deal)
**Non-homogenized half and half from Strauss creamery (comes in a glass jug - it's divine) UPDATE - Strauss does homogenize its half and half.  I've switched to raw milk from Organic Valley or Strauss's heavy whipping cream, which isn't homogenized, but is lightly pasteurized.

New Food Horrors

Every time I think - ok, I've got this whole food/pre-industrial revolution way of eating down pat, I find something new that's wrong with food and the way I'm making it.

Problem: Microwaves kill all that is good in the world* - apparently, they change the DNA of food or something.
Fix: I bought a small covered pot to keep at the office (where we have a range, thank God!). I'll be using it to reheat everything from coffee to oatmeal to dinner leftovers.

Problem: Phytic acid** - oats, legumes, and whole grains have this acid, which works to pull nutrients from the soil into the plant, which is great. However, if it isn't neutralized, it locks nutrients in the grain and pulls nutrients from the body, which isn't great.
Fix: I have to soak everything overnight before I use it, from oats, to the whole wheat bread flour I mill, to beans, etc.

To quote a good friend of mine (a nutrition and "real food" guru), "Food wasn't meant to be easy."

Well said, my friend.

* Ten reasons to throw out your microwave
**Discussion about phytic acid found here.

Bread Wars

I decided to start making my own bread a few weeks ago, for the primary reason that store-bought bread has a lot of additives, preservatives, and doesn't really taste all that great. I was already waging war against all the food in my kitchen under the banner of clean eating, so by George, I was going to make the best bread EVER and never buy it again! (Hubris alert)

Bread-making runs in my blood. My paternal grandfather is famed for making amazing bread, and my father and brother reportedly inherited the gene. I've had some success myself; my focaccia is well-received, my banana bread is matchless, and I made a terrific flax and almond loaf a few weeks ago. This resume bolstered my confidence that I could regularly make my own bread for all purposes. No sweat.

After doing some reading on flours, I discovered that white, store-bought flour is devoid of nutrients, having been stripped of the bran and the germ. Organic whole wheat is a good choice for health, being full of vitamins and protein and fiber. You can buy it at the store, or, even better, grind your own! So, being the good little soldier that I am, I ordered some organic whole winter white wheat and a gorgeous, gleaming mill that would make Martha Stewart jealous.

Milling ones own flour is an experience of surpassing earthiness. Aside from the fact that my mill runs on a motor and plugs into the wall, I have never felt so close to my pioneer forebears as when I poured whole wheat kernels into the mill and received a pile fresh, warm flour in return. It was the soil in which my dreams of crunchy-granola earth-mother bread-making ascendancy would take root and bloom into reality...Or not.

With great pomp and ceremony, I made my first loaf of wholemeal bread. It came out of the oven looking gorgeous...but tasted like dirt and was as heavy as a brick. It made a loud thud as it hit the bottom of the garbage can.

Undeterred, I tried again with a different recipe, petit pain au lait. That is evidently French for "little deformed cousins of biscuits." They were dense and biscuit-esque, but not bad, considering I used yeast that I discovered later had expired in 2005. For these I used 1:4 wholemeal to white flour ratio.

I tried the petits pains again with unexpired yeast and all whole wheat flour. To my great surprise, they came out better than the previous batch. They were hearty but light and, although they had the characteristic bitter aftertaste of whole wheat, they tasted great with nutella. SUCCESS! After a few days, the little buns made a fabulous French toast.

I found some recipes specifically for whole wheat flour, so we'll see how those turn out. I will also be using the grain mill to make oat, rice, barley, and quinoa flour. I can't wait!

Rice, Rice Baby

I keep a small rice cooker in my work cubicle and like to make rice for lunch from time to time. I do this secretly under my desk because it's so convenient. I realize how weird that is, but I like fresh, hot delicious rice. Is that so wrong?

I just scored major points with the Filipino ladies in my office, who caught me rinsing my rice in the kitchen and sneaking off with the rice cooker pan. One lady asked "Um, where are you making that?" After blushing like crazy and then explaining myself, I got a few approving nods. I think I made some friends. Or they think I'm crazy.

I'm okay either way. So long as I have my rice.