Leftovers for dinner

For three nights last week, we had leftovers for dinner. One night was just a quart of split pea soup I had frozen a couple of weeks ago. Nothing to do but heat and serve! Another night I took some leftover pasta sauce (also frozen), a tomato meat sauce with sausage and a bit of ground beef. It also had a small amount of onion, carrot and celery, along with mushrooms, a kind of bolognese. I browned another crumbled sausage with about a half cup of chopped fennel and then added the pasta sauce, a half cup of fire-roasted diced tomatoes, and about 2-3 tablespoons of tomato paste. I keep a tube in my refrigerator--handy! Also a bit of water. It was pretty good!

I finally used up the pork tenderloin from earlier in the week, maybe 3-4 ounces, in a Asian-style stir fry. I chopped up the pork and marinated it in a mix of garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sherry and sherry wine vinegar. I then sautéed some chopped vegetables--2-3 mini peppers, 6-7 white mushrooms, a carrot, a scallion, and a wedge of purple cabbage, plus some more garlic and ginger and some red pepper flakes. When the vegetable were tender, I put in the pork and its marinade and then added some more soy sauce, and about 2 teaspoons of cornstarch dissolved in more sherry. Served with brown rice, it wasn't bad. But after all the leftovers, Tim go a steak last night!

Bread making

A few days ago I mentioned that I was trying to make a sourdough starter just from the air. Well, yesterday I completed my first loaf, and it was moderately successful. It had some sour dough flavor but was a bit denser than I might have liked--the final rise was probably not quite enough.

For this loaf, I followed a recipe in the Greens cookbook, cutting it into a third so as not to waste too much flour. After the starter had been fermenting for three or four days, I made a sponge using about half of the starter and flour and water--in this case all whole wheat. Because my house is cold, I let the sponge sit for nearly 24 hours, rather than the recommended 10-12. Then I added more flour (bread flour this time) and a small amount of yeast, kneaded it into a dough, and let it rise for several hours--this rise was pretty good. The pictures below show the starter about after about 3 days and the finished bread. When I get a loaf I really like, I'll add a recipe!

Bread, after dinner

Starter

A very good cake recipe with FRUIT

This recipe comes from the former acting Superintendent of Schools in Darien, back when I was on the school board there. I included it here years ago, and have made it more times than I can count. A major change today, since I have no fresh fruit, is the use of frozen berries, mostly black berries and blueberries, and the recipe below is just as Darrell Lund wrote it.

Here is a simple but very good cake recipe in which you can use virtually any kind or combination of fresh fruit.

3/4 cup sugar
8 tbsp. butter or substitute
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs or equivalent (eggbeaters, etc.)
1/4 cup mixed sugar and cinnamon (I use a crystallized brown sugar for added texture)

1.  Butter a 9" spring form pan
2.  Cream butter and sugar
3.  Add flour, baking powder, salt and eggs and process thoroughly
4.  Spread dough in spring form pan
5.  Add fruit
6.  Sprinkle with mixture of sugar and cinnamon
7.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 60 minutes (I place cake in lower shelf of oven)

Be very generous in your use of fruit. Press them into dough (which is quite soft). Fresh raspberries are particularly good, as are blueberries. You really can use virtually any fruit, including those from cans or jars when not available fresh. It tastes lightest and best when eaten about 30-45 minutes out of the oven.

The Salad Issue

The Fenton household usually has a side salad for dinner, and during the summer often makes salad a main course, Nicoise salad being the favorite. But at this time of year, there are two or three basic versions, which are now being modified due to less frequent shopping trips.

The first thing to consider, is the salad dressing. I use only olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard (but not always), salt and pepper. Growing up in California, I had salad for dinner most nights, and not just iceberg lettuce. We also had romaine, red leaf, and butter (Boston) lettuce in our salads, along with green onions, tomatoes, radishes, and cucumbers. Salad dressing was olive oil (no extra virgin back then) and red wine vinegar—never any bottled dressing in our house.

I still occasionally make salad dressing the same way when I am in a hurry, lightly coating the salad with oil and then adding vinegar, usually red wine, to taste along with salt (a bit of Malden is nice) and ground pepper. For prepared dressing, I put a scant tablespoon or generous teaspoon of mustard in a jar and mix it thoroughly with about 2 tablespoons of vinegar and a big pinch of salt. Often I mix a couple kinds of vinegar, red + sherry +balsamic for example. Then I add olive oil approximately three times the amount of the vinegar and shake the mixture well. I taste, then add more of whatever it needs—vinegars vary in strength! After tossing the salad—not too much, you don’t want to drown it—I add more salt and ground pepper.

Winter Salad #1

I like to use at least 5 different types of lettuce (or other greens) in my salad, so the first version includes endive and radicchio and 3 or more of the following: arugula, romaine, red leaf, Boston, escarole (especially now as it keeps well and is useful in soups too), frisee, watercress...you get the idea. To the lettuce mix I add chopped apple (about ¼ for two), thinly sliced fennel, chopped nuts (usually walnuts) and dried cranberries. If I have some blueberries, I might through those in as well, and in California I also substituted the firm persimmons for the apple. To this salad I add a good sized hunk of blue cheese, usually the inexpensive Gorgonzola sold at Costco, but stilton is great too.

Heads of lettuce keep much better than the mixes, so I don’t usually buy mixed lettuce unless I am having a big dinner party. However, this winter I have made one exception: I have occasionally bought power greens, which are also useful for soups and stir-fries. For this particular salad I sometimes add a bit of Seka Hill Elderberry Balsamic Vinegar—you can find it if you live in California!

Winter Salad #2 uses a similar mix of lettuces, but I don’t find it absolutely necessary to use the endive. To the lettuce I add whatever of the following I have on hand: scallion or shallot, cherry tomatoes, fennel, cucumber (English ones seem best in the winter. Look for unusual ones in the summer!), avocado, radishes (and don’t forget the greens), celery, carrots, artichoke hearts, you get the idea. I like to have at least 3 or 4 additions. However, according to Marcella Hazan you should not mix carrots and cucumbers in the same salad! This salad also usually gets cheese, as I love it in salad. Sometimes blue, as above, but also parmesan, goat cheese, ricotta salata, or other odd bits.

Other Ideas? Well, I do like a caesar salad, or a variation on one. For me this means croutons, parmesan cheese, anchovies, lemon juice instead of vinegar. For lettuce, in addition to romaine I might use radicchio and escarole and I have also been finding red romaine recently. Baby kale or thinly sliced kale will also work. I do use raw egg in my caesar salad, but if you want to avoid that, you can try making a dressing with lemon juice, mayonaise, and olive oil.

I will have more on salad when spring and summer arrive: Greek salad, asparagus salad, tomatoes and mozzarella, gazpacho salad and more. But for now, especially with pandemic related shortages, stick to things like radicchio, romaine, endive (wrap in paper towels!), escarole, kale and other hearty greens. The picture shows my collection of vinegar and one night's salad. I try to always use California Olive oil, though not a lot is available here. Olive Ranch is good, though.

Wild Mushroom Risotto & Swordfish Provencal

Late yesterday, I decided to cook the frozen swordfish and pair it with a wild mushroom risotto. I still had a few fresh mushrooms, which weren’t going to last forever, and I went back and forth between using arborio rice and farro, but ultimately picked rice, as easier to time—and I have more of it! Since I am cooking for only two, the quantities below are small, but could easily be doubled for 4 or 5, or in the case of the risotto to make it a vegetarian main course.

 Wild Mushroom Risotto
 First, I soaked about ¼ ounce of dried mushrooms in very hot water for about 30 minutes, while working on other prep. I used about a quarter pound of white mushrooms, sauteed in butter and olive oil (either one alone is fine) along with the white part of a scallion (saving the green for garnish). I rinsed the dried mushrooms under running water (and saved the water (filtered through a paper towel) for use in the risotto), chopped them, and added them to the fresh mushrooms for the final few minutes of cooking.

 Now for the risotto. Someone, maybe Mark Bittman, suggested that you don’t really need to stir the risotto constantly. By adding boiling liquid about a half cup at a time, you can walk away and work on other parts of the dinner or watch the news. I was using 2/3 of a cup of arborio rice, so I added about 1½ cups of water to the mushroom liquid and brought it to a slow boil.

 I sauteed the rice in about a tablespoon of butter and a half-teaspoon of salt until lightly coated and then added a finely chopped small sweet red pepper (really just for color) and about ¼ cup of white wine (vermouth works too, or skip this part). Then I started adding boiling liquid, stirring well after each addition. Before I was done (after about 30 minutes, you need to taste it to determine doneness), I had probably added an additional half cup of water. When the rice was almost done, I stirred in the mushrooms, and then the saved scallion greens and about two tablespoons of chopped parsley. I like some parmesan cheese on my risotto, so I used a microplane to grate a bit on top. There was more than enough for two side-dish servings— and some lunch today.

 Ingredients:
2/3 cup arborio rice
3 tablespoons butter and/or olive oil, 2 for the mushrooms
4 ounces fresh mushrooms
¼ ounce dried porcini mushrooms
1 scallion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 small red pepper, about 2 tablespoons finely chopped (optional)
¼ cup white wine or vermouth water

I wanted to make the swordfish recipe very simple since the risotto had several steps. This is a winter version of a summer recipe I use when cooking swordfish on the grill, but still not grilling weather here in Connecticut. I also served a small salad. Look for more on salads tomorrow. My daughter Laura says it’s my superpower!

Swordfish Provencal (Winter version)
10 ounces swordfish
¼ cup diced tomatoes—mine were fire-roasted
8-10 chopped olives, I used green but black would be good too
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 chopped scallion
1 tablespoon of olive oil
splash of white wine (or water)

Brown the swordfish in the olive oil, about 4 minutes per side and remove to plate to finish sauce. Deglaze the pan with wine or water, then add all the remaining ingredients. Stir to combine well, adding additional wine or water if needed. Pour on top of fish.

Back in Connecticut

A lot has happened in the seven years or so since I last signed in! After my mom died in 2014 and my two daughters had babies a year later, we decided to move back to Connecticut, rather than make quarterly cross country trips. So here we are, in the northwest corner of Connecticut, a few miles up the road from our daughter's weekend house. We are living in the village of New Preston, in the town of Washington, less than two hours from New York City, where we still have a small apartment in Jackson Heights (Queens). But for now, with New York ravaged by this terrible virus, we are here--as is our daughter and her family. With not much to do, and no one to see, I am spending a lot of time thinking about food, and making some too. Yesterday, it was baguettes--I am experimenting with how much non-white flour I can use--and Pasta and Bean soup. I basically modified a Williams Sonoma recipe I found on line, using ingredients at hand. I am trying to shop only every two weeks, though I usually do it at least twice a week. So I am using my freezer and getting creative when it comes to salad, which normally we would have every day. Escarole anyone? Adding to my current culinary restrictions is that both of my daughters have decided not to eat meat or poultry, though fortunately they are still eating fish. So I had been doing a lot of experimentation with fish and seafood for awhile, with some positive results (which I frequently try out on my neighbor Diana, who also does not eat meat). Right now, after a conversation with my sister-in-law Beth, I am trying to make a sourdough starter from the air, using directions from the Greens cookbook. Basically just mix flour and water and leave it out for a couple days. I'll let you know how that works! For stocking your pantry in these trying times, I highly recommend Melissa Clark's suggestions in the New York Times. I have just about everything she recommends, though not as much frozen spinach as I would like, since my store was out of it last week) and probable not quite as much canned fish, though an almost full 24-ounce jar of anchovies from my last trip to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. While there, I also bought a pound of dried mushrooms, exceedingly helpful since fresh ones don't last too long. But I've also used some frozen ones, and they're not too bad. I'm not sure what she said about canned tomatoes, but I also have a lot of those, diced, whole, fire-roasted, plain. Davis, California, was a wonderful place to live for many reasons, but especially the food. We had an amazing farmers' market that was open year-round (here they are only seasonal), a fabulous food coop, and two branches of the small Nugget food market chain, along with Trader Joe's and Costco (in Woodland). Here I do most of my shopping at two small connected grocery stores, which have a lot of organic products, and the larger of the two a good fish counter. There's also a great natural foods store in Woodbury, about 25 minutes away, though I tend to shop closer to home. And of course there's a Costco, but about a half hour so we only get there every six weeks or so (or when we run out of toilet paper). Sadly, no Trader Joe's! So that's it for now. I still haven't figured out what to cook for dinner. Maybe a stir-fry with some left over pork tenderloin? Or some swordfish, which I have in the freezer? I think Tim is getting sick of my cooking, as he passed on the bean soup last night, and it was pretty good. I froze the rest, minus any pasta, for another time. So stay tuned...