Pozole

Let's pretend it hasn't been over a month since my last post, shall we? I wish I had an excuse.

Last week, after a very successful 8k race in the 32nd Annual Shamrock Run (46:59...woot!), I came home to prepare one of my all-time favorite comfort foods: pozole.

Most of my menu planning for the week depends on what's on sale at New Seasons. It's not the cheapest of stores, but they sell great products and emphasize sustainable and organic foods, which are important to us. After much trial and error and finally a refusal to battle the crowds and craziness at the Interstate Fred Meyer, we figured out a way to shop at New Seasons each week--shop the sales. So what else is a girl to do with a whole fryer and $.59/lb organic cabbage? This version of pozole is different than the pozole verde I made last fall for the Annual Rice/Wrigomery Fall Fest. It's a lot simpler, straightforward version, but basically the same idea.

Start with a whole chicken (about 4-5 lbs) cut into pieces, skin on, enough water to submerge the chickadee, salt and an onion cut in half. I only had half an onion--I recommend a whole onion.

After about 15 minutes, remove the chicken breasts, shred, and set aside.
Leave the legs, thighs, and chicken breast bones in the water until
dark meat falls off bone (about 1 hour).

Mmm...fat. Now get rid of it. (Thanks to Michael for my fat separator.)

Add in the drained hominy (a large can) and a good portion of oregano
(Mexican variety preferred, but ordinary oregano works just as well).

Add the shredded chicken at the last minute, just to warm.

I bake my tortilla strips instead of frying. Just cut into smaller pieces,
coat with olive oil, and bake at 400 degrees until crispy.
Toss with a little salt at the end.

To serve, sprinkle with red pepper flakes for a little kick.

Serve very hot. Top with shredded cabbage, queso fresco
(we used cotija--couldn't find queso fresco), radishes, tortilla strips,
and if available and not too expensive, avocados. Be creative!

It's a very satisfying and filling dish that's really not too high in fat or calories. I apologize for my lack of good, non-blurry close ups of my food.

Buen provecho!

Steve's Famous Macaroni and Cheese

Last week, I had a mad craving for some really good mac and cheese, so I emailed my sister for her friend Steve's recipe. Gina made it for Christmas last year and since then, other recipes (even the Test Kitchen's) have just fallen flat. Steve's recipe has 4 cheeses in it: parmesan, romano, sharp cheddar, and mozzarella. I can't reveal much more, so here's a camera phone photo journal.

 

Whisking the bechamel

In goes the par-cooked pasta

All cheesy and ready to be baked in my I'm-not-sure-how-it-hasn't-fallen-apart-yet-there's-a-huge-ass-crack-in-it Le Creuset baking dish

 

Cheesy goodness

And with a side of roasted broccolini

Best. mac. ever.

Double Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

I had a moment of domesticity last night and decided to make a quick batch of cookies. I inherited some baking supplies from a coworker a week ago and had an idea immediately to use them in an oatmeal cookie.

Using a basic oatmeal cookie recipe from the Test Kitchen's Best Light Recipe* cookbook, I added chopped dried cherries, a large handful of white chocolate chips, and another large handful of dark chocolate chips.

Sorry so dark

They were delicious right out of the oven--just wish I would've had some milk around to go with them. Shawn gave his hearty approval, as did my coworkers the next day, even though they were cold. 

*Side note: I highly recommend the Light Recipe cookbook. They focus heavily on flavor and try to cut down the fat and calories of a lot of great dishes. I'm not a huge believer in low-fat diets, but if you can trim down a recipe without using crazy altered ingredients, I'm all for it. I've cut down my use of oils in a lot of recipes just using techniques like sweating the onions.

Pizza Night

Last night I recreated my favorite pizza: the patate, lamb n' ham from Vincente's. It consists of lamb sausage, prosciutto ham, roasted red potatoes, mushrooms, and smoked mozzarella. I was assembling our grocery shopping list (care of New Seasons online) and thought pizza would be a fun Saturday night dinner. I've been dying to try out a beer pizza crust and finally made time to do it. I had beer pizza crust once before, from Jet City Pizza in Seattle, and became enamored with the idea of beer in my crust. I found the recipe on Foodista, but made a whole wheat crust from the Test Kitchen, just in case.

Which dough will rise first?

 

Cheese pizza I ended up making with the whole wheat crust

Our delicious ingredients

The Results
The crust was delicious, although made an odd amount--not quite enough for two, but too much for one. I ended up making bread sticks out of the extra, which was a fabulous idea. I brushed them with olive oil and threw on some coarse ground kosher salt. The toppings turned out amazing. Whether at home or at Vincente's, that combination remains at the top of my list.

Burgers & Fries

As an engagement present, our friends gave us a burger cookbook from the fabulous chef Hubert Keller. We're big fans of burgers and are always looking for fun new ideas on how to make improvements. We had one condition--when Chris came back to visit over the holidays, we owed him some Keller burgers. Deal.

Saturday night they came over for burgers and fries, slightly gourmet style. I didn't alter two of the recipes I used from the book, so obviously, I can't publish them. I made the oven fries with red potatoes and whole cloves of garlic. Yum. The only thing I'd change there would be to not crowd the pan so much. I knew I shouldn't have, but I was lazy. I also made a kalamata olive tapenade. It was pretty salty on its own, but with the burgers...I had faith in its ability to take them to the next level.

With the burgers, I took a little creative license. On New Year's Day we went over to our friends' house to watch the Rose Bowl and brought sandwiches fixins. Since we already had sharp cheddar cheese, I used that instead of the monterey jack cheese. Basically, it was a rather large burger patty with minimal seasoning cooked with a little bit of light oil. I finished the patties in the oven so the cheese would get really melted. While those were finishing, I decided to coat some thinly sliced shallots in flour and fry them. All of that was thrown onto a lightly toasted ciabatta roll, which had a thin spread of tapenade, and plenty of red butter lettuce. Just wish I had taken a picture with something other than my phone.

Sunday Dinner: Ham, Potato & Cheese Chowder

What do you do with the leftover half of a 12 lbs. ham? Make soup of course!

This started out as a soup recipe, I turned it into more of a chowder. The original recipe comes from Epicurious.com. The following is what I did.

Ham, Potato & Cheese Chowder
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 1/2 cups chopped carrot
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 teaspoon dried thyme
7 tablespoons all purpose flour
5 cups canned low-salt chicken broth
4 cups whole milk
3 10- to 12-ounce russet potato, peeled, diced
2 cup packed shredded sharp cheddar cheese (about 8 ounces)
2 cups chopped ham
Chopped fresh parsley
Salt & pepper to taste

I basically just adjusted the amounts in the recipe and followed the directions as written. The only other difference--after the potato was soft, I smashed about a dozen pieces to thicken it up just a little more. I also eliminated the hot sauce. I was planning to bring some leftovers to a friend and she doesn't do spicy.

We were quite pleased with the results. I recommend Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese for this recipe (and most recipes, really). I also recommend not being tempted by the lazy route of buying pre-shredded cheese. I don't think it integrates as well.



The only downside: I still have about 4 lbs. of ham to use. In the freezer it goes!

Sunday Dinner: Roast Beef

Last Sunday's dinner went a little more traditional since it would be the last Sunday dinner before Christmas. It was about 10 degrees last week in Portland (barely an exaggeration if you can believe it), so I thought a nice roast beef would be a perfect way to warm up. That and it was on sale at New Seasons, as was the broccoli that accompanied it. To round out our meal, I used the recipe of a friend of my mom's who is Swedish. I'm not sure what it's called, but I just call it, "those yummy Swedish potato thingies." Descriptive, I know.

To make the roast beef, I used a 3.3 lbs. tip sirloin roast (3-4 lbs. is ideal), browned it on all sides with sunflower oil (or whatever high temperature oil you choose) for about 10 minutes total over med-high heat. This helps retain the moisture and flavor of the meat during cooking.

Roast Beef
3-4 lbs. roast (I used tip sirloin)
1 T high heat cooking oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 250 and place rack in the lower-middle position. Tie the roast, if necessary. Pat the meat dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil to med-high until just smoking and brown meat on all sides (about 10 minutes). Set a rack in a roasting pan and place meat in it. Roast in the oven until medium-rare (about 1 1/2 hours). Let roast rest, tented in foil, for 20 minutes. Slice and serve.

Lots of leftovers with this dish

I also made a horseradish sauce on the side to go along with the meat. I grabbed a recipe for a roast off of Epicurious.com and just used the sauce (which I called horsey sauce, even though it's about a million times better than that crap at Arby's). It was a very nice complement to the meat and was great for the leftover roast beef sandwiches we had.

Swedish Potatoes
White or yellow potatoes (as many as desired)
Unsalted butter
Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Peel potatoes and slice about 1/4 inch, but not all the way through. Place small amount of butter between slices, sprinkle a little salt and pepper on all the potatoes. Place potatoes in a baking dish (I used a Le Creuset square baking dish). Sprinkle parmesan cheese on each potato and bake until tender.

Tender and crispy potatoes

I served the rest with roasted broccoli. It's a recipe I got from a Cook's Illustrated about 2 years ago and I use as often as possible. Basically, you just toss broccoli spears with olive oil and a little bit of sugar and broil it until bright green. The secret is to heat the broiler and throw the broccoli onto the hot broiler pan so it cooks through and quickly. To serve, add a splash of lemon.

A somewhat traditional Sunday dinner