Cooking from the Pantry

Melissa Clark has a great series in the New York Times about cooking from the pantry, and luckily her pantry is very similar to mine. One of her suggestions is to make a basic Pasta Puttanesca and add canned tuna to it. This seemed like a great idea to me, so I made it last night and it was good.

Pasta Puttanesca can be made without a trip to the store if you have the following: pasta, canned tomatoes, garlic, anchovies, olives, capers, and parsley (or other fresh herbs). I keep large quantities of all of the above, so I can always make this dish, and while I don’t always have tuna, I do now due to limiting my shopping trips. 

For two people, this meant about 5-6 ounces of pasta, a small can of tomatoes, as many anchovies as you like—I used three—several cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of capers and ¼ to ½ cups of olives--mine were Kalamata, chopped. Melinda makes hers with a bottled pasta sauce, which would mean even less cooking. I cooked the sauce for about 15 minutes, adding the tuna towards then end. Then I added the cooked pasta to it (and pasta water could be added here if needed), and sprinkled chopped parsley and basil on top. Served it with parmesan, and had enough for someone’s lunch today.

Chicken Divan

I had some broccoli in the fridge the other day and had just unfrozen a very large chicken breast, so I was thinking about what to do with them. I faintly recalled a recipe from my youth (though I am not certain my mother actually made it; I may have just read about it) using those ingredients, and with a little trial and error found some recipes on Google. Now the traditional recipes all seem to call for cream of mushroom soup, and some also include mayonnaise (!!), but I thought I could make a good enough version with a béchamel sauce, with some parmesan on top. So I did, and it was pretty good comfort food, much needed in these times.

Next time I will blanch the broccoli only for a minute, instead of the 4 minutes I did, since it cooks quite a bit when the dish is in the oven. I cut the chicken breast into several thin pieces then floured them and browned in butter and olive oil. I also sautéed 3-4 large mushrooms and then deglazed the pan with 2-3 Tb of sherry. I layered the broccoli, chicken and mushrooms in a gratin dish and poured the béchamel on top—made with about a cup of milk and ¼ cup of heavy cream. Then sprinkled parmesan on top and baked for 25-30 minutes. This could also be done with a firm fleshed fish, such as halibut, and it’s similar to my halibut Florentine, but with broccoli instead of spinach.

Bread Making #2

Yesterday I worked on baking bread. I added some of the started I had made to my current baguette recipe, and it turned out okay, though the sour dough taste was faint--more next time. I also tried a new recipe for whole wheat bread--we have run out of bread!! It was also okay, so I will post picture of the results.

More Garden Therapy

Last week I potted up the herbs I bought at The Garden in Woodbury. The chives from last year made it through the winter in the pot, which I put on my screen porch. I also put rosemary, lemon thyme, and basil in small pots on my kitchen table. Looking forward to real spring and summer!

Last Pot Roast of Year?

Earlier this week I made what I imagine will be our last pot roast of the year. When the weather is warmer, we move to the grill! This was a small chuck roast, slightly under two pounds, as I had used part of it earlier in a beef stew (my favorite in Julia 1, which doesn't require browning!). Here are the ingredients:

2 pounds chuck roast
olive oil for browning meat
2 carrots, sliced or julienned
1 chopped onion
thyme, salt and pepper
1 Tb tomato paste
1 cup red wine
Beef broth as needed
4 ounces sautéed mushrooms

I marinated the meat in the red wine for several hours, turning once, and then dried it and browned it in the pan I planned to cook it in. I then briefly cooked the onion in the pan (possibly added a bit more olive oil?) and then poured the wine marinade into the pan, scraping up the browned bits. I put the meat back in and added enough broth to come nearly to the top of the meat, the tomato paste, and about 1 tsp. of thyme, plus salt and ground pepper. After about 2 1/2  hours of cooking I added the carrots and a bit more broth and wine. I had already sautéed mushrooms, so I added those after three hours and continued cooking several more minutes to warm them up. It would be nice to add parsley at the end for color, or green peas, but I didn't this time.

Now I plan to take the leftover pot roast and turn it into Beef and Barley soup. First, I will soak about an ounce of dried porcini mushrooms in very hot water. Then I will sauté another onion, along with a couple of carrots, two celery stalks, and one chopped potato and add the pot roast (cut into small pieces) and its remaining gravy and vegetables. I will probably add about 2 cups of beef broth and 2 cups of water (including the mushroom soaking water, strained through a paper towel), 1/2 cup of pearled barley and the chopped (rinsed and drained!) dried mushrooms. I will probably also add about 1 Tb of tomato paste, mostly for color. The soup needs to cook for about 30 minutes, until the barley is tender. I like to serve it with a spoonful of sour cream.

Bread Making

I have not come up with a good loaf of bread using my starter. The taste has been pretty good, but the bread has been too dense, and of course bread made with just flour and water doesn't keep long. Today I added a bit of the starter to the french bread recipe I have been using (modified version of the recipe in Volume 2 of Julia Child, substituting about a cup of whole wheat flour for some of the white and much less complicated loaf formation). If good, I will post a picture later. I will also add some of the starter to a very basic whole wheat bread recipe and see how that works. Stay tuned...

Sheet Pan Chicken with Potatoes, Leeks, and Arugula

These days I do a lot of my chicken cooking on a sheet pan, sometimes with a whole chicken and sometimes with just thighs, usually bone-in. Last night I cooked Melissa Clark’s sheet pan chicken with potatoes, leeks, and arugula, but since I didn’t have arugula, I used finely shredded kale—and it worked. It’s supposed to be served with yoghurt with grated garlic, but I forgot to put it on the table—dish was fine without it.

Her recipe is for 4 but since I had a whole chicken and there are just two of us here, I halved the other ingredients in her recipe. I will make a curry or Moroccan chicken dish with some of the leftover chicken, probably the latter since the chicken was marinated in olive oil and harissa. I cut the whole chicken into 8 pieces, removing the backbone, and the timing is about the same as with chicken thighs, maybe just a few minutes more. Here are Melissa’s ingredients for 4:

1½ pounds chicken thighs (My chicken was about 3 pounds)

1¼ pounds small Yukon gold potatoes—I used 3 smallish ones—cut in half and thinly sliced

2 leeks cut in half length-wise and thinly sliced (white and light green, I used one large one)

4 Tb olive oil

¼ tsp ground cumin

2 Tb harissa

grated lemon rind from ½ lemon

3-4 ounces arugula (I used finely shredded kale)

1 cup plain yoghurt with one grated garlic clove

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Marinate the chicken and potatoes for at least 30 minutes in 3 Tb of the olive oil mixed with the harissa and cumin, and add the remaining olive oil and lemon rind to the leeks. Spread the chicken and potatoes onto a large sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes. Loosen the potatoes with a spatula, and spread the leeks over all. Cook another 25 minutes or a bit more if using a whole chicken. Remove from oven and spread the greens over the top. When using kale, I mixed them into the potatoes and juices to coat completely and put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes. That seemed to work. Serve with the yoghurt on top—though I forgot! 

If you can't find harissa, you might try some other type of hot pepper sauce but use a bit less. If I don't have leeks, I do this with yellow onions, and they are fine too. Her recipe adds dill at the end, but I rarely have it. Do give it a try if you have some.

Garden Therapy

It's not really spring weather here, but on April 1 I went to the Garden in Woodbury and bought herbs, lettuce, arugula, and bulbs. Yesterday I planted most of them in some pots, for a bit of spring on my porch--it was great therapy, and I recommend it. My daughter said she bought $20 worth of pansies, just because they were available at the side of the road. It's disappointing not to be able to go to the garden center and wander around looking at plants. but the Garden was happy to take an order over the phone and bring it out to me. I hope they can keep doing it!

Caldo Gallego

Caldo Gallego is one of my favorite soups, and I make it at least once a month, 9 months a year. I pretty much use any kind of greens I have—this time it was radish greens and finally shredded kale since there weren’t enough of the radish greens. Here are the ingredients I used:

2 thick slices of bacon cut into ½ inch pieces, or use pancetta if you have it

¾ cup dried white beans (I used great northern, but canned beans also work)

2 medium Yukon gold potatoes (Idaho works too), cut into ½ inch dice

1 large white turnip, ½ inch dice

6-8 ounces chorizo sliced ¼ inch thick (I used pre-cooked, fresh better)

about 6 ounces chopped greens (turnip traditional)

water or chicken stock as needed.

Cook the beans with water to cover by about 2 inches, time will depend on how fresh the beans are. Mine were old, so I had to add more water and they probably cooked for nearly 2 hours! While beans are cooking, cook the bacon until almost done and then add the chopped onion. Cook until onion softens and then add potatoes and turnip. At this point, I added the beans and their liquid to the pot to finish cooking, but wait if using canned beans or if your beans are already soft. Add about 2 cups of water and/or broth.

Cook the vegetables for about 20-25 minutes and then add the chorizo and chopped greens (and canned beans if using). Add more water or broth if needed and cook until the greens are tender—kale takes a bit longer than others.

Can you make this vegan or vegetarian? Maybe, though the bacon and chorizo add most of the flavor! But you might try one of the Beyond Meat hot sausages, and add some additional hot pepper. And maybe bacon bits? It might work...