Stews Around the World

I had to take the kid to the doctor's last week to check if her cough was just a cough ... or if it was something more serious.

There's a magazine at doctors' offices around these parts called Chop Chop and it's kind of like Cooking Light for children and their parents/caregivers.

We picked up the latest issue because (1) the kid loves helping in the kitchen and (2) we needed something to read in the exam room before we saw the doc.

Anyway, the most recent issue includes recipes for stews from various world cultures.

We read the recipes together and talked about the kinds of things our family eats and enjoys.

Then, we decided which of the stews we'd like to try.

Today, I'm making Chop Chop's take on French Cassoulet.

Taking Stock

When the weather 'round these parts starts getting cooler, we make soup and stew and chili and all kinds of comfort foods.

One of the primary components of soup is a good stock.

These days, you can buy decent stock in aseptic cartons at the grocery store, but if you're properly motivated, you can make it yourself.

Me, I've been fairly motivated, but I didn't have the appropriate equipment to try Alton Brown's recipe, although I've had the requisite chicken carcasses, vegetables, and herbs in the house at various points this year. 

My mother, generous soul that she is, offered me the loan of her stockpot so I could actually clear the carcasses out of my freezer and turn them into stock.

Shopping List

• fresh parsley
• fresh thyme

I already had the 4lbs of chicken carcasses, leek, onion, carrots, and celery ribs prepped in the freezer and I always have bay leaves and peppercorns in the pantry.

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

This is very easy, but you do absolutely need the correct size stockpot. AB calls for a 12qt pot for stock-making, which is the size I borrowed from Mom. (My largest stockpot is 5qt.)

Collecting the carcasses is also time-consuming, but the munchkin had taken quite well to roast chicken for dinner over the last year, so I had plenty.

My sister could certainly do this if she put her mind to it.

Specialty equipment required?

Yes. 

In addition to the stockpot, you need a strainer - to remove the solids from your stock - and a smaller stockpot or large bowl to hold the stock you make. (Wouldn't want your 12 hours' work to literally go down the drain, would you?)

It's also suggested that a vegetable steamer be used to help keep the vegetables and chicken parts submerged, though I don't know if this is completely necessary. It is quite helpful, though.

Rating?

Well, this is kind of sticky. 

It's not an every day or even an every week rotation type of recipe, but that's mostly because I haven't got chicken parts every day. I've got several quarts of stock in my freezer, which should get me through the winter without having to buy box stock (yay!) but haven't had occasion to make soup yet.

I did use some of it in a slow-cooker pulled pork recipe (16oz frozen stock, 1-2 thinly sliced onions, 2lbs bone-in pork shoulder, 1c apple cider; cook on LOW for 8-10hrs, drain, pull, mix with favorite BBQ sauce & serve) and it turned out nicely, so that portion of this batch was a win.

We'll see how it goes as the season progresses. 

Welcome Fall!

OK, so it's a bit early and it certainly still feels a good bit like summer 'round these parts, but fall is assuredly on its way in the northern hemisphere.

The children have gone back to school, the New Jersey State Forests Facebook account reassures me that, in many of the inland and northern counties of New Jersey, the leaves have begun turning.

It's also pumpkin and "pumpkin spice" season. 

The latter has been subject to a bit of (nonsensical, in my opinion) debate about whether something that I think clearly highlights the spice and the subsequent evocation of pumpkin pie. Because, when push comes to shove, pumpkin as we know it today in the US is pretty flavorless. (NB: I'm seeing more and more this property of food being described as "tasteless," which bothers me. "Tasteless," in my opinion, refers not to the senses but the sensibilities. So, you'll see "flavorless" here.)

That's not to say I object to the use of pumpkin in other applications. Even if it's not particularly tasty by itself, it's fairly nutritious, and its lack of flavor allows it to be incorporated into everything from chili (purists may disagree) to pasta sauces and various desserts.

Anyway, today's use of pumpkin is in a dessert - the "Pumpkin Pane Pudding" published in the Fall 2015 issue of Wegmans Menu magazine.

Shopping List

This one was easy - all I needed was the fresh bread and whole milk!

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Easy-to-medium.

I do think, however, I cut the bread cubes a bit too large - it calls for half-inch cubes.

My sister might be able to do this

Specialty Equipment Required?

Yes. Cubing fresh bread is much easier with a serrated bread knife. 

That's not to say one couldn't make this if one didn't have a bread knife, but it's certainly a lot easier.

Regular Rotation-Worthy?

No.

I didn't realize the husband didn't like bread pudding, and the kid hasn't tried it.

But I like it fine. Special occasions only, then. 

The Pizza Cone Experiment

Yesterday, I was out of ideas and needed a dinner solution that was quick and relatively inexpensive.

So, lured by the siren song of the "pizza cone" video making the rounds on Facebook, I attempted my own.

Shopping List

• 1 tube refrigerated pizza dough (I used Pillsbury brand)
• 1 jar pizza sauce
• 1 block mozzarella cheese (I used store brand, part-skim)
• meat topping (like pre-cooked meatballs, sausage, or pepperoni; I opted for frozen, pre-cooked turkey meatballs, in a 1" dice)

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Easy-to-medium.

My sister could do this, but she might want a bit of help.

Specialty Equipment Required?

Yes.

First, you need to figure out a form for your dough-cones. I used heavy-duty aluminum foil; most videos will show wrapping a small paper cone cup (like the kind one might find near a water cooler) in foil. 

Second, it helps if you have a rolling pin, because you do want to roll your dough a bit thinner than it comes out of the can. Yes, OK, Pillsbury makes a "thin crust" pizza crust in a can, but I don't know that it would be worth it to use in this application. (I used a ginger beer bottle)

Third, parchment paper is a MUST unless you're big on greasing pans (I'm not.)

Last, many videos use oven-safe mugs for the post-filling melting step; the linked one uses a popover pan. I didn't and don't feel like there's anything missing - my fillings stayed inside the cone just fine, as the cones themselves were a bit misshapen, so there was a flat side. 

Regular Rotation-Worthy?

Yes, with a slight modification - I'll use less sauce inside the cone and provide (warmed) sauce for dipping.

Recipe Construction: Or, How Not to Put Red Sauce on Pasta ...

There are a lot of options for saucing pasta, but my "quick dinner" go-to is using marinara from a jar. 

We pause to allow the screams of horror from my Italian friends to echo fully in the vacuum caused by deigning to use something I didn't spend all Sunday tending on the stovetop.

I've said it before, and it bears repeating, I am not Italian. 

So, when tasked with making pasta "without red sauce" and remembering my husband could take or leave pesto, I found myself at a quandary.

But then the lightbulb switched on as I remembered a recipe for orichette with sausage & broccoli rabe that was lightened up by a celebrity chef ages ago on Food Network.

Broccoli rabe isn't my favorite vegetable to prepare at home (I find I need to blanch & shock it before sauteeing to leach out some of the bitterness) so I looked elsewhere in the same family to come up with ... spinach.

So, that's what I tapped into Google: pasta sausage spinach.

I read a few recipes and formulated a grocery list. All I needed to transform my lowly box of farfalle (a/k/a "bow tie" pasta) into a gourmet-inspired dish was a package of turkey sausage (casing removed, mild Italian seasoning), cheese, and spinach.

I keep garlic and olive oil on hand at all times. Pantry staples, so to speak.

While you boil the water for your pasta, break up the sausage into bite-sized pieces (should be roughly the size of apricot pits) and brown/render fat in a nonstick pan. Be sure to choose a pan with a well-fitting lid.

Scoop the sausage out with a slotted spoon & set aside. 

Drop heat to medium-low, add 1 Tbsp. olive oil to the pan with 1 clove of chopped garlic. Saute 'til garlic is fragrant (less than a minute on my stove; YMMV) and reduce heat to low. 

Add spinach (mine was in 9oz pre-washed packages; I used 2 pkgs, for 18oz), use tongs to coat in oil/sausage drippings/garlic mix at bottom of the pan. Add 1-3 Tbsp of water to the greens and cover.

While the pasta cooks, the greens should wilt. When the greens are wilted, add the sausage and 1/2 cup of shredded/grated Italian cheese (whatever you like; I used pecorino Romano.)

Cook pasta according to package directions for "al dente" or a little less. Before draining, reserve 1/2 cup pasta water.

Drain pasta, toss with greens, sausage, reserved pasta liquid, and cheese. Sauce won't be super-thick, but it will thicken a bit on standing as the pasta absorbs some of the liquid.

While the kid turned up her nose at it, the husband ate 2 portions.

OK then.

Recipe Review: Good Eats Chocolate Pudding

I don't know about you, but I really like chocolate.

So do the munchkin and husband.

The munchkin has been asking for chocolate pudding every time we're in the dairy aisle at Wegmans. While it's great to have it as a treat every once in a while, I'm not too keen on spending money on things I can make at home.

And, thanks to the Good Eats episode "Puddin' Head Blues," I've already got a couple of pudding recipes in my back pocket.

Including one for chocolate pudding.

Recipe Review

Shopping List

• Instant, nonfat, powdered milk
• heavy cream
• whole milk

Everything else was in my pantry.

Ease of preparation

The mix bit was quite easy, though I did neglect to add the powdered milk. (Oops!)

This is a stovetop-cooked pudding, so I'm rating the recipe as "medium" overall.

Even so, my sister could do this if someone watched her kids.

Specialty Equipment Required?

Yes. AB gives the dry ingredient measures in ounces, which means he'd rather you added them by weight and not by volume. 

I have a kitchen scale; I bought it for $15 several years ago. It's great for things like this.

He also calls for the cooked pudding to be run through a strainer to remove any stray lumps from the starch's gelatinization. This is a worthwhile, though messy, step!

Regular rotation-worthy?

Rather a big hit, I thought, so, yes.

RECIPE WIN. 

Recipe Review - Pork Chops with Sweet Onion Marmeletta

Today's recipe comes from Giada Di Laurentiis's cookbook Giada's Kitchen. The recipes are very well-written, easy to follow, and require a mid- to high- degree of kitchen competence, unlike the recipes in Everyday Italian, which are quite simple and won't crush a beginner's confidence.

That said, even a beginner who gives themselves a lot of time could certainly give these recipes a try. When I say Giada's recipes are "well-written," I mean it. I really enjoy cooking when I'm following Giada!

So, tonight we're going fancypants and serving up something that Giada describes as "the Italian version of pork chops and applesauce."

Yum.

Shopping List

Since I already had the pork chops and pantry staples, I only had to pick up a few things:

• fresh rosemary
• fresh thyme
• large onions (calls for 4; I got two very large Spanish onions)

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Simple, though time-consuming - you need to caramelize onions, which takes a LONG time. (Though I have seen a method to do it in a slow cooker!)

It's also recommended to slice the onions Very Thin, so if your knife skills are still in the "beginner" stages, you might have trouble.

My sister might need help with this one.

Specialty Equipment Required

A grill pan or outdoor grill is nice for cooking the pork.

You'll need a larger pan than you think for cooking the onions.

And a plunger-style measuring cup is helpful for measuring the marmalade this recipe requires, but it's more of a "nice to have" than a "requirement."

Did my husband and daughter enjoy it?

While the kid wouldn't touch it (she knows where the peanut butter is, so she didn't starve) the husband enjoyed the pork, but not the marmeletta.

I enjoyed the marmeletta and would like to make a large batch of it ... and home-can it!

It's too much work to do the marmeletta on a weeknight, especially if I'm the only one eating it, but if I've got it pre-made (and canned!) grilling up some pork chops wouldn't be too hard.

MIXED VERDICT.