Can you get “slow food” out of quick steps?  Turns out, yes.  Three nights in a row we ate really well, even though I was feeling deeply lazy. The only thing keeping me from ordering pizza delivery on Saturday was that something was about to go bad in the fridge. 

Monday’s polenta squares started as Saturday chicken guilt.   

Saturday

The “use or freeze by” date was upon us.  I cleaned and rubbed the waning chicken with lots of rosemary, thyme, sea salt, and peppercorns.  It went into the mini-rotisserie (or a low-heat oven would have been fine) for an hour and a half.  Nestled on top of some fresh greens, that chicken was mighty fine, considering the amount of hands-on cooking time was about 10 minutes. 

After dinner we threw the bones in a pot with chunks of onion, carrot, celery, parsley, and bay leaf, with enough water to cover.  I brought the pot to boil while cleaning up the kitchen, and let the pot simmer until it was time to go to bed. 

When we strained the stock into a bowl, we tasted it.  It was a rockstar quality stock, though a mite salty.  I knew it would become a science project if I didn’t use it up quickly, because I would be too lazy to find the right dish to freeze it in. 

Sunday

I was late getting home.  The quickest stock-using solution I could think of was to peel a butternut squash, shred it in the cuisinart, and boil it with the stock, along with some nutmeg, honey, and white pepper.  The cooking was quick–about 10 minutes–because the squash was in small shreds. Rinsing the cuisinart during boiling time and using it to puree the soup added almost no time to the whole deal.  We had butternut squash soup, along with bacon sandwiches (bacon prepared on a cookie sheet in the oven).  Dinner took about 15 minutes to make. 

After dinner, we had lots of leftover soup, which I was sure would become next week’s compost if we didn’t morph it into something new, ASAP.   So it became two other things:  the base for a lunchy lentil soup (Easy! Boil rinsed lentils in the soup with some extra water for a little over half an hour),  and the liquid for cooking polenta.  

While Michael gave Rosalie a bath I made the polenta, washing dishes in between polenta stirrings.  When it was ready, I spread the polenta in a flat layer on a greased jelly roll pan, covered it with wax paper, then slid it into the fridge.  I was feeling super smug at that point.  Most of the work was done now!

The next night, a tired Monday night, all I had to do was cut the smooth, flat polenta into squares, dip it in egg and bread crumbs, and fry the squares in olive oil with slices of onion.  I served the squares with tomato sauce, the fried onions, and Parmigiano-Reggiano.   These little squares were crispy on the outside and full of butternutty, corny richness on the inside.  We ate so well and so happily.  I felt truly recharged by this accidentally thoughtful meal.

Is there a cookbook out there that shows how you can do this on a regular basis?  Using part of one night’s meal to make the next night’s meal  is not just efficient; it’s bringing love and luxury into your day.  It’s the gift of time that you somehow stole, the pleasure of slow food by staggering or layering your meals.  You get something slow out of something quick!  Magic.

Would I call this a chocolate cookie?  It’s airy and crisp on the tender surface, deeply cake-soft inside, and it’s dotted with wicked, molten chocolate hotspots throughout.   Having only one is not an option.  Cookie?  It’s more of a dark seduction. This is the kind of recipe to splurge on the finest chocolate, because you might be making excuses and cancelling plans to get alone with these devils.  Don’t say you weren’t warned:  Double Chocolate Indulgence is trouble.

I thank Kristen Schumacher for this mess I’m in now.  She’s the one who modified this recipe from one given to her while she was at Seattle Culinary Academy.   If she weren’t such a gifted flavormaker,  I wouldn’t be here, slapping myself on the hand to keep from eating them all before the bake sale they’re intended for.   Fortunately, it’s a dough that you make ahead, freeze into log shapes, then slice-and-bake when you want them.  But they’re singing their siren song from inside the freezer and it’s a terrible temptation to resist.   

If you don’t want to be stuck alone with a whole batch of these, or if you want to sample treats from a whole lot of great cooks, come to the Seattle Food Blogger Bake Sale this Saturday.  All money goes to Share our Strength, a national organization committed to ending childhood hunger.    The sale is at the Metropolitan Market at the Uptown location – 100 Mercer Street.  It runs from 10 a.m. ‘til noon this Saturday, April 17. 

If you can’t wait until Saturday and would like to have your illicit chocolate experience immediately, here’s Kristen’s recipe.  Have fun!  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Double Chocolate Indulgence

Printed with Permission from Kristen Schumacher of Heirloom Chef

• 6oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1 lb semi-sweet chocolate
• 3 oz unsalted butter
• 5 eggs
• 14 oz granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 oz cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 lb chocolate chips
• Powdered sugar, for rolling

Directions: 

1. Place bittersweet and semi-sweet in bowl with butter, and melt in double boiler (or metal bowl inside a similar-sized pot). Scrape sides as it melts- you do not want any chocolate to burn. Cool slightly.
2. Whip eggs and granulated sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla. Temper the egg mixture into the chocolate by slowly pouring the chocolate into the egg as you stir vigorously. 
3. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, chocolate chips. Add to the chocolate and egg mixture and stir until combined. Cool the dough until it is firm enough to be handled.
4. Divide dough into 4-6 portions. Pour dough onto long pieces of parchment. Using the parchment for assistance, roll dough into ropes. Enclose the ropes and refrigerate or freeze until firm (I freeze them).
5. Once ready to bake, roll ropes in powdered sugar to get the shape you want.  Cut each cookie about ½ inch thick. Bake cookies, double panned at 350˚ for 11-15 minutes. These cook fast. They should be soft in the center and set on the edges, and they will firm up as they cool. Do not overbake!

Makes about 5 dozen cookies

I’ve already mentioned the wickedly delicious, vegan,raw restaurant Thrive on 100 Days of Salad, but I just can’t get enough of their food, so here I am, writing about it again.   I keep thinking about the next time I’m heading back to try another item on the menu.   I first discovered Thrive last Saturday and returned the next day, and the next.  I have yet to try something off their menu that I don’t love. 

They have opportunities to volunteer there, and I’m definitely signing up.  Did you know you can learn how to be a master Coconut Hacker as a volunteer there?  Ah, too much good stuff.  I told the owner, Monika, how much I loved the place, and she wanted to know what it was that I liked.     Then the lunch rush tumbled in, so I went home and wrote a fan letter, like the restaurant stalker that I apparently am.  Here’s what I wrote. 

why i love thrive

mission: Thrive’s mission is thrilling–and timely.  Our city is thirsty for juicy health and more connection with each other!  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for making a difference.  Most importantly about the mission, you walk the talk, and you also have set up a system to help achieve Thrive’s goals. 

people: The staff’s faces, interactions, and work all showed their “caring intentions and thoughtfulness” when preparing each meal, as described on your About page.  Their care translates directly to some mighty luscious flavors and a real feeling of belonging for each customer.  Even when the lunch hour started to get busy, everyone seemed unflappable, kind and focused. 

space: Open kitchen plan; south-facing windows; airy feel in the room’s setup; great furniture; accessible location in the city; relevant, quality products for sale.

details: the simple, beautiful dishes and the generous, heavy flatware.  Black  blouses for staff—the food looks so lovely presented against the black background, in generous hands!  Each time a new dish or drink comes out, people’s heads would turn and they would ask, “What is THAT?”

customer involvement: Inviting the  customer to participate (volunteer work, customer bussing, ordering up front) eases costs, which appears to assist in the reasonable prices of the food.  This modern yet ancient approach feels so right, especially since it’s meant to feed a great need in our community.   And it gives customers a sense of ownership and connection that brings their hearts into the dining experience—something that’s found less in restaurants and more at a loved ones’ kitchen table.

current, vibrant identity: The whole picture is effective and cohesive: the graphics, the look of the literature, the space’s décor, and the organization of the website.  It makes great sense to use Facebook and Twitter for a place like Thrive.  It seems meaningful, with more potential for interaction than many restaurants, who seem to slap on some social media options because that’s what you’re supposed to do.  I also liked the LCD panel in the store with changing pictures of customers/community.

seamless service:  Meals are delivered quickly and in a friendly way. Efficient POS system. Very professional while still friendly!  Efficient and gracious food service.  

programs: So many excellent ideas- trying raw food for a week, meeting together for juice cleanses, volunteer opportunities (for credit?), classes.   It has the feeling like you are just getting started with the possibilities!

thank you for helping us thrive!

These salads I’ve been making are delicious, usually casual and easy, and they fill my heart and stomach with joy.  Inspired after the food styling workshop, I started taking pictures of these joy-giving salads, so I started a new sister blog, called 100 days of salad , to share ideas.  I hope you’ll share your own ideas there as well!  100 days of anything is pretty long, even if it is your favorite thing.

Bring to Boil is still continuing on. It’s like when Buffy the Vampire Slayer spun off to the concurrent but separate show, Angel.  The two blogs will likely refer to each other, since the same person is cooking for both.  One blog’s going to be about daily salads, and this blog will continue to be about Everything Else (possibly even more salads?).

As the food stylist Delores Custer says, “When you like a food photograph, who do you usually give credit to? The photographer.”  And where are the credits for the food stylist?  “In the gutter.”  I thought she was making some kind of bitter joke, but actually, the gutter is the place in the magazine that’s so close to the binding that we hardly see it.  I just went and checked the gutter of a few magazines and saw no credit for the stylists.  From here on out, though, I’m keeping a lookout and giving due props for pictures I like.

A food stylist is responsible for making food both visually appealing and mouth-watering.  These two qualities don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand.  Have you ever seen a food photograph that is gorgeous and artful but not necessarily something you would want to eat?   Maybe that shot was intended to “sell” something else besides the food (such as a lifestyle shot).  Or maybe the person is a great photographer but has little experience with styling and shooting food.  I could go on about this for a long time. It’s a fascinating and subjective part of food photography–making it mouth-watering.  Delores would show us two beautiful food shots that were presented differently and asked us which we would rather eat.  The response was, literally, 50-50. 

Even though “mouth-watering” is subjective, food stylists do have some great tools that they bring with them on shoots to help optimize a food’s beauty and delectability.  Some common tools include a small atomizer to create subtle moisture on produce, a paintbrush and vegetable oil to create sheen, and tweezers to carefully move tiny items around, such as a wilted piece of lettuce.

Delores pointed out that a food blogger has to be the art director, food stylist, prop stylist, and photographer for food shots.   Good point!   I have a hard time imagining these jobs being separated out for four people. I wonder what that is like. Those people would have to be real team players.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons Delores split us up into pairs to style food for our photographs.  This was challenging and completely hilarious.  Viv and I paired up.  Viv is a gracious, gregarious, generous soul who didn’t mind that I was completely spazzing out with the vegetables.  At one point someone stopped by our table to see what we were up to, and it looked like a salad spinner sneezed on our table.  Whatever we were working on seemed to be buried under three kinds of lettuce.  We laughed more than we styled.  After much flailing with the salad concept (the “art director’s” job), our various chopped and sliced veggies evolved into something kind of elegant-looking. This final arrangement took about 3 minutes after half an hour of the aforementioned spazzing and flailing. 

As another part of the assignment we also took some pictures of biscotti (as seen above and below), but in comparision to the salad assignment, this seemed more natural and effortless. 

I learned a lot working with Viv.  Much of this seemed to occur to me after the fact.  Her natural elegant flair was really great to be near, and I will be able to take that with me to future sessions behind the camera.  I’ll bet that lots of people learned much from their partners in that class.  It was a really good idea.  And–I’m not surprised to learn–Delores used to teach 5th and 6th grade!  Go, teachers!

Last Friday I was excited to teach a cooking class — “Cocina Con Amor” — a Spanish-themed meal for February.  Yes, I wanted to take Valentine’s Day into consideration, but really that kind of love was not the sole inspiration for the class.

The central ideas–and a huge driving force in my cooking–had to do with increasing joy in the kitchen and having that translate to even more delicious food for your beloved family, friends, & guests.  The techniques and tips focused around decreasing annoyances & avoiding feeling overwhelmed (as with a dinner party).  I talked about the mostly make-ahead dinner and gave a sample plan for the week before a dinner party, and I gave some concrete cooking and anti-annoyance prep tips.   The evening was so much fun, thanks to the lively and wonderful class participants!  I’ll list the menu at the end of the post.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to keep my mood joyful when preparing food.  I mean, moods happen.  What do you do when you’re feeling tired, grumpy, sad, or distracted?   Here’s what I’ve been doing lately:

• Play favorite guilty-pleasure music.  This one is huge for me!  I have one CD that will make my tired and grumpy body start dancing, in spite of me.  I feel a little like a marionette, tugged upward against my will by guitar strings, but it spreads to my brain eventually. It shocks me how well this one works.
• Think about some things I’m grateful for, especially the people who will be eating the food
• Pay close attention to the thing I’m doing right then.  This most often occurs to me when I’m cutting things.  Thank goodness, right?  It’s nice having my fingers.  It’s also fun to listen closely to the rumbling bubbles of pots boiling.
• Drink water.  This helps the tiredness, anyway.
• Don’t cook, after all (frozen pizza is our lazy last-minute standby)

What are your tricks?

Cocina Con Amor Menu

• Tapas/Pintxos – idiazábal cheese skewers with caramelized pearl onions; marcona almonds; olives 
• Salad – mixed greens with dried apricot, hazelnuts, and sherry vinaigrette
• Main -cerdo al chilindrόn (saucy braised pork with serrano ham, tomatoes, and fresh & dried peppers)
• Side -  fideo con azafrán y limones preservados (short capellini scented with saffron & preserved lemons)
• Dessert – traditional spanish flan

But now I reign victorious and have broken the mental roadblock of intimidation.  It’s that dang thermometer again.    

Over the holidays, my father-in-law, who had recently given us a yogurt maker (essentially a plug in low-heat incubator), showed me in no uncertain terms how easy the task is.  You heat a quart of milk with 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk for added richness.  You cool the milk down to a certain temperature range.  You add 1/4 cup plain yogurt (I used Greek style yogurt).  Stir, incubate overnight. Refrigerate.  It’s done.

I’m not giving specifics on heating and cooling because the details I saw online are different than the ones my father-in-law told me, so I need to experiment more before I go and toot that horn. 

The point is, you can make yogurt with a few ingredients and no official equipment (besides a thermometer).  I used the yogurt maker for a few jars of yogurt, but I also experimented with keeping a bowl of the mixture covered and on a heating pad and got equally good results.  It sounds like you can use other heat sources, such as a previously heated oven or even a crock pot.  

I like that I can control the thickness and acidity.  I also love that making yogurt costs about half as much to make it than to purchase it.  Next up: Cheese.  Yes.  This will happen.  It will happen before a dozen months from now.  I’ve used the thermometer, and I’ve made something from a culture…there’s no turning back!

I read recently that your dinner plate is “supposed” to contain only 1/4 meat, 1/4 starchy stuff and then all the rest is vegetables.  Or something like that.  Maybe it was exactly one bite of meat followed by three pounds of vegetables.

At any rate, the ratio was interesting to consider, since many of the meals I make for my family are usually super meat-happy.  Michael has passionate carnivorous tendencies, and Rosalie is no stranger to the meats, either.  I am somehow less so.  Not to say that I’m a bunny–although I was a semi-vegetarian for a few years.  I’m definitely an omnivore with all the delights that go with it, but after awhile, I feel like I need a break from the meaty side of life.     Also, with all the food experimenting I like to do (especially lately with chocolate), it’s easy to start feeling gross from all the richness. 

Salad is one of my favorite dishes.  It’s a pretty broad category, so there’s no shortage of possibilities there.  Especially when you do the weird thing that I’ve been doing lately with my salads.  Basically I make a dinner for Michael and Rosalie that would make them happy, then I mix a small serving of whatever is for dinner into a huge, crunchy, colorful salad. 

Here’s the deal.   A vast expanse of plants on my plate can be fun for awhile, but it can become tedious, especially when the rich part of the meal (the enchilada, the baked potato, the pasta, the pizza) can just ruin the fun of salad by hanging out there being intense and delicious. I don’t want salad to ever become a chore. 

So. If I’m going to eat the healthy salad and the alluring rich food all in the same meal anyway, why not make a salad with vegetables that are harmonious with the main dish, then dump that dish right on my salad?

For example: Pizza?  Cut it into cubes and you have pizza croutons.  How about chili? Just think “taco salad” and include veggies that work in that context, such as bell pepper, avocado, onion, crisp lettuce, and tomatoes.  All manner of meats thrive in a salad when cut up small enough, and the sauces just add some complexity to the vinaigrette. 

Tonight I transformed a bowl of soup into a salad by cutting up only chunky veggies rather than leafy ones, then pouring the soup over them (without most of the broth).  What broth there was broadened the flavor of the simple olive oil and vinegar.

At first I started doing this just because it was fun and it tasted good.  Now I’m considering it a challenge.  How many dinners or lunches can become salads?  When does it go too far?  Indian curries or Thai food?  I think not, especially if it’s a heavily spinachy salad.  Seriously. Is there a single homestyle meal you can think of that absolutely would not work on top of a big old salad? I can’t think of one yet.

Butternut Squash Arancini Stuffed with Pecorino Toscano

Unbelievable! I wrote this post on the evening of November 24.  I was looking for this recipe on my site and couldn’t find it…sure enough, there it was in “drafts” rather than “published.”  Was it that late at night when I wrote this?  Anyway, here is the post:

Arancini (risotto fritters),  translates from Italian as “little oranges,” since these little fried risotto balls do resemble oranges.  Arancini originated in Sicily and are usually filled with meat or tomato sauce, peas, or mozzarella. 

The Romans have a similar version of these croquettes, called Suppli al Telefono (which I believe translates to “telephone wires” or “on the phone”), which adorably refers to the strings of melted cheese that connect the two halves of the fritter when it is cut or bitten in half.   As the name indicates, Roman Suppli al Telefono are usually filled with cheese. 

These arancini are a non-traditional recipe, made with butternut squash risotto and stuffed with Pecorino Toscano, which is a creamy cheese.  I think a mild mozzarella would be fine as well.

Butternut Squash Arancini

Ingredients:

• One recipe of risotto (butternut squash or other kinds work as well), cooled
• 3 eggs
• 2 T milk
• 4 oz Pecorino Toscano (NOT Pecorino Romano. Choose a creamy cheese.  Mozzarella is fine)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups dry bread crumbs
• 3 cups vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Cube the cheese into 3/4 inch chunks.  In a small bowl, beat two eggs in with the milk.
2. Stir the third egg into the cooled risotto.  Roll 2 tablespoons’ worth of the risotto mixture in your hands, then with a finger, push a piece of cheese into the center of the ball.  Re-roll the ball around the cheese cube. 
3. Roll the ball into the flour, coating it lightly.  Drop the ball into the  egg mixture, then roll it in the bread crumbs.  Lay the ball on a cookie sheet or a piece of parchment or wax paper.  Make the rest of the balls, which will give a chance for the first balls to dry out slightly before frying. 
4. Slowly heat the oil in a medium, deep saucepan to 350˚.  The best temperature to do this is medium-low.  In small batches, fry the balls until they are evenly browned, turning them if necessary.  This will take several minutes.  Test the first ball to make sure you are happy with the interior–the cheese should be well-melted. 
5. When a fritter is finished, lay it on paper towels to absorb the extra oil. 
6. These arancini freeze well.  After frying them, lay them on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer.  After they are well-frozen, seal them in a freezer bag.  To re-heat, place fritters on a cookie sheet in a 350˚ oven.  Bake for about 20 minutes.  Alternatively, you can freeze them before frying them as well.

Today marks the last day of NaBloWriMo, National Blog Writing Month.  I feel proud to say that I wrote 30 entries in a row (having learned about this only on November 2, I wrote two entries on the 2nd).  Somehow this doesn’t sound like a big number as I write it, but it was definitely a bit of a brain marathon.

Though the challenge was merely to get out there and post each day, I did make an effort not to just dump out whatever was on my mind, like a fat purse, willy-nilly. I was thinking about you and other people who might stumble upon this site and wanted to offer some kind of entertainment, information, or food for thought.   

If you have been reading in the last month, I hope you have felt entertained, informed, or fed, at least once!  It’s been a great challenge and learning experience, and if you keep a blog yourself, I hope you might consider doing it next year, too.  I’m going to do it again next November. 

I’d like to share another completely adorable tidbit from the book I mentioned last night, Food for the Hungry. 

This book has a chapter on “The Dinner Pail” (i.e., the lunchbox), and how to make lunches wonderful and exciting for your loved ones. Really, she’s targeting “the stomach of a tired man whose appetite has been dulled by mechanical, in-door toil.”  I wish I could share all of the fun and fanciful ideas she has for that lunchbox (is this woman a turn-of-the-century Martha Stewart, or did this stuff really happen???). 

However, I don’t want to wear out my welcome in your brain, so here’s just example of something fun from the chapter that  I actually plan to try, just to see how it turns out.  As you will see, it is right up any person’s  alley whose subliminal desire it is to make truffles out of everything.

Deviled Eggs (Turn of the Century Style!)

Partially quoted and borrowed from Food for the Hungry

1. Boil six eggs (hard).  Slice the eggs lengthwise and scoop out the yolks into a small bowl.  “Rub to a paste with a generous teaspoonful of butter.  Season with pepper, salt, and a suspicion of mustard.”
2. Mold the balls into spheres of their original size and fit the yolk back into a hollow half.  Line up the other half of the egg so that you have put the puzzle back together.  
3. “Roll each egg up in tissue paper, as you would a (get this–) bon-bon, twisting the paper at the ends.  If you wish to make the entree ornamental (of course you do! Who wouldn’t?), fringe the squares of paper before enveloping the eggs. 
4. You can  also make the yolks “yet more savory” if you add giblets & gravy to the yolks to moisten the paste. 

Serves 6 dinner pails?