Gobi Matar

I haven't posted on cooking in a while. Or much of anything for that matter. But I have been a bit obsessed with learning to cook more Indian food in recent weeks.

Gobi Matar

A side dish for a Massaman curry tonight was a new recipe for Gobi Matar (Cauliflower and Peas). This is a fairly typical Indian dish of a sauce base made from onions, ginger and garlic, and then tomatoes, to which you add about a dozen spices and simmer for a while. An oversimplification, but true nonetheless.

It was delicious. Nobody around here seems to be complaining about the Indian food kick...

A Weekend of Happy Cooking

Amp and I spent some of this weekend doing something that we both enjoy, given the time to do so... Having a glass of wine (or two or three) while cooking together. This weekend, we made an Ina Garten Eggplant Parmesan recipe (from FoodTV) on Saturday and a Jacques Pepin Boeuf Bourguignonne (beef stew) recipe on Sunday.

Ina Garten's take on Eggplant Parm was not the classic Italian American fried mozzarella cheese fest, which we thought might be a nice change of pace (I make one of those cheese heavy versions, and it is good, but has a lot of cheese and a lot of frying). This recipe is three layers of pre-roasted eggplant, marinara, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese and parmesan, and fresh basil. We are converts to the oven roasting of veggies...

Layers of goodness

A crispy panko bread crumb and garlic topping is the last step (along with Ryder cleaning Amp's fingers...)

Ready for the oven

The recipe was easy if a little fiddly (time consuming), but gave a lighter and more eggplant-based end result than the version I have been making for years now. The kids agreed that this was the better version, and I have to agree. It was more about the eggplant and less about the cheese and sauce. Not that it wasn't plenty rich enough... The goat cheese gave a nice unexpected tanginess, and the panko topping gave a really nice crunch.

Half demolished...

Sunday was for Jacques' beef stew. I adore Jacques Pepin, and would consider him one of the two or three greatest influences in my love of food and cooking. I probably have more of his cookbooks than any other author, and I treasure them all. Especially my copy of Chez Jacques, which has a "Happy Cooking" signature plate.

Chez Jacques

"Happy Cooking!" Indeed.

"Happy Cooking"

This was the target we were aiming for (and I think we came very close!).

Boeuf Bourguignonne

Early stages - Beef, onions and garlic.

Beef Stew stage 1

Middle stages - Add a full bottle of good red wine (a reserve Spanish Rioja in this case).

Beef Stew ready for the oven

The end result - Adding separately cooked pearl onions, carrots and crimini mushrooms, along with lardons of cooked salt pork (basically little batons cut from a big chunk of bacon).

Finished Stew

This is definitely a weekend recipe (as was the Ina Garten one), but well worth the effort. It was rich and decadent. The cooking liquid in the "ready for the oven" picture above is no water, no stock, just an entire bottle of good quality ready wine. Yum.... 

We don't always have the time to spend on a pair of 3-hour dinners, but this weekend we did. One small benefit of 1 year of Covid19 stay-at-home time I suppose you could say.

Stay safe. Be well. And try to find any small silver linings you can from this time we are forced to spend staying at home.

Life Coming Full Circle

...or, we're getting old.

...or, just appreciate the random symmetry.

32 years ago, fresh off of our graduations from Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College, we moved to west Philadelphia, Powelton Village to be specific, to be near both my new job in Center City and Amp's PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania.

One of the first things we found in our new neighborhood was the White Dog Cafe, a quirky and revolutionary restaurant on the 3400 block of Sansom Street. Judy Wicks founded the restaurant in 1983, and was an early disciple of the kind of farm to table cooking and sustainable agriculture focus that was pioneered by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in California. Such a thing might not seem unusual now, but it was very unusual in the 1980's...

Anyway, despite being one of the better restaurants in Philadelphia, the White Dog's prices were very reasonable, and the food was astonishingly good. So with a good job, and a stipend, and no kids...we ate at the White Dog maybe once a week. For a couple years. We became familiar with the staff, and became friendly with the Manager at the time. We attended a few fundraising dinners and wine tasting events with Judy Wicks and Kevin von Klause in the residence space above the restaurant.

September 1990 rolled around, and a wedding was happening, so we needed a place to have a small reception for 50-60 family and friends, with us footing the bill ourselves. Our first choice was to have everyone to the White Dog, but they didn't do wedding receptions. Until we had a nice conversation with the manager, let's just call him Mr. Blake, who agreed that we could have our wedding reception there if we could squeeze it in between the lunch service and the dinner service. Which, for a noon wedding at my childhood church in Havertown, would work out fine.

We picked a menu, worked with the pastry chef to come up with a chocolate raspberry wedding cake, and had a wonderful wedding day. I still have the copy of the then-current dinner menu from which we picked the three entrees from which the guests could choose. Keep in mind the prices are circa 1990...

White Dog dinner menu c. September 1990

So we got married...

The Bride

And some years later we had kids. And the kids grew up. And Grace got a job as a junior server at a retirement home. And then Grace decided that she would like to work in a somewhat similar but more dynamic environment (i.e. a real restaurant). And she saw that the White Dog was opening it's 4th location, less than 10 minutes from our house, this September. And this name rung a bell for her. So entirely on her own, she applied for a job as a food runner and hostess trainee. And got the job. She starts later this week, when the place opens for business.

First, I am immensely proud of her initiative, in that she decided entirely on her own that she wanted to do this, did the research, applied, and got hired. Without any help from us other than an enthusiastic "go for it!"

Second, it gives me a warm feeling inside that she is going to be working at the White Dog Cafe. The White Dog was a part of the earliest years that Amp and I had together. And now... Well... Less than a month short of our 30th anniversary... If you have kids (or a heart!) you'll get what I'm feeling.

It's strange how things work out. Pure chance, or a graceful symmetry, who can say.

That being said, with time to spare on this Labor Day holiday Monday, Amp and I put together a meal with help from the White Dog Cafe cookbook.

The Cookbook...

We did a simple grilled chicken with Lime-Mojito marinade (McCormick's marinade, not White Dog), with Warm French Lentils (page 206) and Lavender and Honey-Roasted Butternut Squash (page 198). We decided to do something simple as the main course/protein, and try a couple of new side dishes from the cookbook.

All I can say is "wow!" This was one of the best meals we've had in a while, and given that we have been stuck at home cooking a good bit to kill time during the pandemic, that says a lot.

Mojito-Lime chicken with Lentils and Roasted Squash

So... Who knows what the future brings, but I am happy that my daughter is going to start working at my favorite restaurant, and one the has a strong connection to our little family's history.

Not to mention the fact that we now have a White Dog right down the street, as dangerous as that may be...

Anyway, I wish any and all who may stumble upon this blog post health and happiness in these difficult times. Stay safe. Wear a mask. And recognize that the choice in the USA this November is between democracy and the slippery slope to fascism, between progressive views and a reversion to the social stone age. Personally, I prefer democracy, not living in the stone age, the rule of law, checks and balances, and an open-minded viewpoint that respects and supports everyone. I prefer living in an America that the rest of the world respects, not laughs at. I reject "Make America White Again" as a thinly-veiled campaign slogan. Or a world-view. Despite being an aging, relatively well-off, straight white guy... Right is right. And I need to be able to look my kids in the eye and tell them that I used my vote to try to make their world a better place. For myself and for them. Your mileage may vary. 

PS - It has been pointed out just now that I always seem to avoid posting pictures of myself. True. Very true. So...

Amp and myself, downstairs at the White Dog

Clearly September 1990 didn't still count as the '80s, judging from the lack of hair on me. A trend that would continue... We won't be posting high school pictures of me anytime soon, thank you very much.

The Happy Couple

Well, nobody pays any attention to the groom anyway, right?

A Vindaloo, Chickpeas, Dragons, and Dwarven Halls

It's Covid-19 Day 101 here at home, and it's both (A) a beautiful day, (B) Father's Day, and most importantly by far (C) in the vicinity of Grace's 16th birthday from a blog-posting perspective.

A few weeks ago, I made the Pork Vindaloo recipe from Cover and Bake, by the editors of Cook's Illustrated (I've noted their wide range of books that I own previously - May 7). Today, having a nice leisurely Father's Day ...at home (shockingly)... I needed something to make with some cubed beef stew meat. We all loved the vindaloo recipe, and there's no reason you couldn't swap out the pork and replace it with beef. So that's what's for dinner.

Beef Vindaloo

For a side dish with an Indian recipe, or frankly, any recipe these days, is my modification of a chickpea recipe, which I will post the details of separately for anyone who might be interested in that sort of thing.

Chickpeas with Coconut Milk and Spinach

For Father's Day, I picked out a few miniatures things for myself, and we did curbside pickup from Games Keep in West Chester when we were in the neighborhood to pick up the new Pilot a few days ago. There were 4 large miniatures from the Wizkids unpainted lines, and included a Gargantuan Skeletal Dragon, a Young Red Dragon, a Behir and an Adult Remorhaz. Now I have lots (more) things to paint...

Father's Day minis

From a crafting perspective, I have had the urge to do some EPS foam board crafting, so I have pulled out the Proxon hot wire table and made some more Dungeons and Dragons terrain pieces (modular caverns and passages, as well as some "Dwarven Halls" dungeon tiles). Given that I have all the dungeon tiles I really need (in two color schemes, no less), it made sense to scratch the itch by making a few fancier pieces. A few of these are shown below (work in process), and I'll continue to tweak some of the techniques and colors. Painting red squares onto the piece at upper left in the picture below was way too stark. The very watered down wash on the other pieces looks much better.

Dwarven Halls tiles

Lastly, and most importantly, Grace is now 16. Hard to believe. As with many of her friends who have had birthdays during the quarantine, and mostly Sweet 16s, it totally sucks that she doesn't get a real birthday party surrounded by her friends. We (I) spoil our kids, admittedly. And we would have spoiled her on her Sweet 16th. We do have a few things up our sleeves, and we will make it up to her when things allow. Until then, Happy Birthday, Grace! You bring me joy each and every day.

Mother's Day and a Painting

Today is Mother's Day, and we had a nice relaxing morning.

While Amp enjoyed coffee in bed catching up on some TV watching, I went into the basement to attempt another rendition of the messy little abstract Provence painting I did in acrylics the other day. About an hour later, I had this little 8 by 10 in oils.

Provence (oils, 8 by 10)

Later in the morning, we had a nice Mother's Day brunch. I made buttermilk biscuits for this first time, which turned out wonderful. I'll have to do that again. The dough came together in the time it took to preheat the oven, and they baked in 10 minutes.

Buttermilk biscuits

Along with the fresh biscuits, I am omelets for everyone. In this case, a ham, mushroom and cheese for Julia.

Mothers Day omelet

For the rest of the day, we'll probably just.....stay around the house.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there. Stay safe.

Spanish-Style Chicken and Rice

We've had plenty of time to browse through our fairly extensive cookbook collection, and I have found many things that I want to make. Some easy, some less so. This is one of the easy ones: Spanish-Style Chicken and Rice from The Best 30-Minute Recipe by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated. We have a half dozen or so books from these folks (they do the Cook's Illustrated, as well as the America's Test Kitchen TV series).

From the editors of Cook's Illustrated...

OK, I just went and took a picture and it turns out we have 8 of their books (the 7 shown above plus a baking book that is currently on the kitchen island since we are making focaccia again as I write this...).

Without copyright infringing on their recipe, your brown some chicken, then saute onions, peppers, garlic and some chorizo sausage.

Chorizo, onions, peppers and spices

You then add stock, rice and some seasonings, and simmer it long enough for the rice to cook in the broth. Then you add back the chicken near the end to finish cooking. Frozen peas get warmed into the mix at the very end.

Result (after we ate some!)

It was simple and delicious.

I can't recommend any book from these folks highly enough. In addition to well-tested and easy to follow recipes, they are chock full of good information on why they did what they did, and what else they tried and rejected before ending up with the final recipe. They are absolutely invaluable for someone who wants to learn more about the art of cooking beyond simply following a published recipe.

Blueberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars

As schools struggle to adapt to online learning, Grace has a side project of documenting baking efforts. Hard to complain, since we get to eat the results. Focaccia was the first project for this, followed by banana bread, blueberry muffins and blueberry oatmeal crumble.

First you make a crust of oatmeal, flour, brown sugar and few other things.

Oatmeal-based crust

Then you add a blueberry filling, topped by an oatmeal crumble.

Blueberry filling and oatmeal crumble

Then you bake.

Blueberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars

Then you scarf down a few hundred calories.

Highly recommended with a cup of coffee for breakfast...

I look forward to more of Grace's "school assignments."

Aloo Gosht, sort of

Covid-19 self-quarantine Day 34. Grace and I make Pakistani "Aloo Gosht". Sort of.

I've been itching to make Indian (or related food), and this was a recipe in a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook (From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail) that looked good, and not too difficult to put together on a weeknight. We do have time these days after all...

I will recap the modified recipe that we actually ended up making, since we didn't have exactly the correct ingredients to make it as written, and the recipe seemed like it was starting to go a bit off the rails part way through. We substituted pork shoulder for the lamb shoulder, since we had the one and aren't going out shopping for the other. We also used an onion instead of shallots. A very minor difference.

You start by sautéing a thinly sliced onion in some oil for about 5 minutes. When softened you add a 2-3 inch piece of finely grated ginger, 2 minced jalapeños, and 6 minced cloves of garlic. [The recipe says make a near-paste out of this in a food processor, but I didn't feel like washing the food processor afterwards for this little bit]. Saute for another couple minutes, then add 2 pounds of cubed pork shoulder (or lamb). Stir it around for a minute or so then add turmeric (1/4 tsp), cayenne pepper (~1 tsp) and ground coriander (~1 TB). Add a cup of water and cook for 5 minutes. The picture below shows us at this stage.

Early stage of cooking

Then you add 2 diced tomatoes, some salt, and 2 more cups of water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add 2 whole black cardamom pods and a cinnamon stick. Keep cover on and cook for 10 more minutes. Add a pound of small waxy potatoes, or the equivalent in chunks. Cook uncovered about 10 more minutes. See below.

Middle stages of cooking

At this point, you are supposed to have thickened sauce clinging to the meat, and not much liquid. If that's the case, you add 3 more cups of water, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for about 20 more minutes. However, at this point, we still had soup consistency despite cooking vigorously. So we skipped the 3 more cups of water and just kept cooking as is. At the very end, you sprinkle some garam masala and cilantro over it. We had to use dried cilantro, but that was better than nothing.

As an aside, Grace has pointed out that I am very rarely in pictures in my own blog. That's kinda true. I don't like pictures much. But here I am throwing loose cardamom pods around the kitchen island. [Note Ryder lurking behind me in case food falls out of the sky (which it sometimes does).]

Grabbing runaway cardamom pods

This is the end result. It's still stew-ish in consistency, but the sauce has thickened nicely. I can't imagine what those 3 more cups of water would have done.

Aloo Gosht, but with pork not lamb

We ate it with white rice, green beans, and raita (cucumbers, yogurt, salt, pepper and cilantro). I can't eat this kind of food without raita, or don't want to anyway... It was pronounced yummy by everyone. I could have used a little more heat, but adding much more in the way of additional cayenne or jalapeños probably would have ruined it for Grace. As it was, it had a nice subtle heat, but nothing extreme at all. The pork was very tender, and the potatoes were almost too tender.

If I were making this again (and I will), I think I would lightly sear the meat as the very first step, then set it aside before repeating what we did above. I also might put the potatoes in a little later to keep them firmer. But these are only very minor tweaks.

Homemade Focaccia

With time on our hands around the house, we have been doing some baking, both for the fun and for the end result. Amp and Julia have made banana bread and oatmeal raisin cookies. Amp and Grace have made lemon pound cake and lemon curd to go with it. I am not much of a sweets baker, but do have an interest in baking breads. Until my "once every 5 or 6 days" food shopping trip at 7am this morning, I hadn't been able to find yeast. Today I found it.

Tonight I gave a little bit of assistance to Grace in making homemade focaccia. It's an easy recipe, with the only down side being that you need to plan ahead, as you have about twenty minutes to get the yeast started, and then two rises of about an hour each, followed by 25 minutes or so to bake.

After the first rise and in the pan

The first rise is in a ball in a bowl, the second is after flattening and stretching the dough in the pan.

Rosemary focaccia

A simple brush with olive oil, sprinkling with rosemary and kosher salt, and then into the oven.

This is the first time we have made this, and it is out of this world. Plus the whole house smells wonderful.

Paul Prudhomme (1940 - 2015)

I love to cook, and it was with great sadness that I saw that one of my foodie idols died today. Paul Prudhomme died in New Orleans at the age of 75 following a brief illness.

Paul Prudhomme. later years

Credited with mainstreaming and popularizing cajun food in the 1970s and 1980s, Prudhomme was a larger than life character (literally and figuratively). Before there was a Food Network and a Cooking Channel, the only way to see cooking on TV was PBS (Public Broadcasting System) channels. One of the early people that I remember vividly was Prudhomme (who appeared on some other shows, but didn't have his own series runs until the 1990's).

Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen

Sometime in the 1990s, I was in New Orleans on a business trip with a few others, and we tried to get into K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen but could not. Back in those days, the place didn't take reservations, and the lines routinely stretched down the block.

Prudhomme's Fiery Foods...

I have three of his ten cookbooks; Louisiana Kitchen (1984, his first), Seasoned America (1991, his fourth) and Fiery Foods That I Love (1995, his seventh).

Louisiana Kitchen is a treasure trove of classic cajun and creole cooking. Fiery Foods contains some of my favorite recipes of all time, including two fantastic chicken recipes, Tomato Cream Chicken (page 182), and Chicken Dippin' (page 172). Tomato Cream Chicken is perhaps my single favorite recipe. Of any kind. Ever.

Browning for Chicken Dippin'

Grace and I made Chicken Dippin' this past weekend: (it was delicious)

Grace Making Chicken Dippin'

Rest in Peace, Paul.

West Virginia - Sunday night - Camp time

We leave the Dolly Sods area shortly after 4pm, basking in the air conditioning for the ride back to camp. We arrive back at about 5pm, having dodged a number of deer running across the road.

By the time everyone has showered and cleaned up, made an ice run to a general store just down the road, and settled into our camp chairs, it is nearing 6:30pm. The sun is dropping toward the ridge to our west, and the campsite is thankfully in the shade, or enough shade if we scoot our chairs closer to the trees. At some point during the weekend Leo comments that he thinks maybe he likes the camping part of these trips best of all. On thinking about it, I might very well agree. I do love the hikes, despite my griping about the climbing and there always being mountains in our trips, but I also really love the camaraderie of the camp time. We sit around the fire, have a few drinks over the course of the evening, and talk. Ted has heard about the same trick I had, which is that if you put an iPhone or the equivalent in a bowl or a coffee cup to play music, it serves as a makeshift speaker. This actually works pretty well, and a small bowl serves to help provide good music until "quiet time" begins at 10pm. Between 4 phones loaded with music, we have plenty of good stuff to listen to.

Camp time

I also enjoy good food, and like the challenge of eating well at camp. I ended up being the quartermaster and cook for this trip (I volunteered), and one of my goals was to try to expand our horizons a little bit. I have always been somewhat surprised that with all the car camping trips that these guys have done over the years, nobody has ever bought or brought a camp stove, and that all the food preparation they have done has always been over a charcoal grill or the fire pit. I've been wanting to try something different, so after some research I bought a Primus Profile two burner camp stove. It runs on standard 1 pound propane bottles (like the green Coleman one in the picture), and supposedly gets about one and a half to two hours use per bottle. Each burner puts out 12,000 BTU of heat, which is plenty to boil water relatively quickly, but also has the ability to simmer on a low flame when necessary. Other than testing it in the yard at home to make sure it would light, tonight's dinner would be its first real use.

New toy - Primus Profile camp stove

Knowing that we were planning a long day of hiking today and not being sure exactly when we would be back at camp (or how much energy we would have when we got there), I planned a simple dinner. I had made a batch of Cincinnati Chili at home during the week and froze it. It had been in the iced cooler slowly thawing over the last couple of days. I would make pasta in one pot on the stove while reheating the chili in the other. The stove worked fine, and we had a great dinner of Cincinnati chili over rotini pasta, sprinkled with shredded cheddar (and hot sauce), with an arugula salad on the side. One dinner isn't a comprehensive test, but I am thinking I am going to like this stove a lot. It opens up a whole new realm of possibilities concerning sauteed or steamed veggies to go with the usual protein-fest.

More Seneca Rocks

Everyone is tired. We watch the sun set on Seneca Rocks, talk and listen to music. Everyone is in bed by perhaps 10:30pm.

Tomorrow (Monday), Ted will be up very early and leaving as soon as he can. He will take some of the gear we no longer need, and drive back by himself to get to work in the afternoon. Leo, Dave and I will do a short hike in the morning, then pack up camp and head home ourselves, planning to be home around dinner time or early evening. With Ted having taken some of the gear, and with half of the back seat available, we will have plenty of space in the SUV.

Next...Seneca Rocks and Home.

Quality Time

It's nice to be able to spend a good chunk of time at home with family and friends over the holidays, and to be able to indulge my passion for cooking.

Grace is my constant companion in the kitchen these days, and I am thrilled that she is showing an interest in learning how to cook alongside me. She is my mixer, my stirrer, and where it makes sense, my slicer/chopper.

I am trying to make her understand that flames on the range are dangerous, as are boiling liquids, hot ingredients and sharp objects like knives. But I am also trying to teach her that accidents can be prevented by having the appropriate training in what to do, understanding how everything works in the kitchen and in the cooking process, and being respectful of the dangerous items. And proper adult supervision of course. She is a very attentive student and is very careful about things like where her long hair is, what is hot and what is not, etc. She's also learning a lot about ingredients, cooking methods, and what goes well together.

We have a lot of fun together, and it is great that she is the one asking me to be involved, rather than me asking her to help out with something that doesn't interest her. She makes me proud.

10 inch razor sharp chef's knife with proper technique

My Little Sous Chef

Dredge... dip... fry...

One of my favorite things, but something I rarely blog about here, is my love of cooking and good food and drink (there is a separate cooking link...). Far removed from my day job, the things that interest me the most in my spare time are almost all outlets for creativity; wargaming (the building things part...), cooking, writing and music.

With that in mind, it gives me great pleasure that Grace has very much taken to the idea of cooking. She watches Food Network and its spin off The Cooking Channel. She will also go out of her way to help me in the kitchen with whatever she can. Even as an elementary school kid, I have relished getting her involved in the kitchen. As we say, everything tastes better when you cook it yourself. I am on vacation this week, burning some time off with the family before the kids go back to school next week, which means I have time to cook. Yesterday, shopping for dinner at Whole Foods, Julia noticed some beautiful locally grown eggplant in the produce section and requested one of her favorites, eggplant parm, for dinner tonight. I shopped for the ingredients today, and Grace and I made it for dinner.

...and turn when properly browned

Grace has gotten pretty good at basic kitchen tasks like stirring and whisking, and has developed good knife skills for someone her age (or any age for that matter). She knows to flatten one side of something she is cutting to make it stable on the cutting board, and can do a large dice, medium dice, fine dice or rough chop without too much guidance. But the most important thing is that she enjoys it and it is something that we can do together.

Tonight, I was in charge of prepping the eggplant so that she could be the one to fry the slices in the skillet prior to assembling everything in the baking dish. I prepped and sliced. She dredged, dipped and fried. Her attention to detail on the safety aspects was good to see; not splattering hot oil by turning the slices the proper way and other details that make for a safe cooking experience. We had a blast.

Oh... and it was delicious.